How To Talk To A Photographer, Pt. 37

The Starburst look can be achieved, or avoided, by adjusting your aperture.

In a scene like this shot of the New Orleans riverfront my aperture was at f/25, an extreme setting for most circumstances, but perfect for what I intended for this shot. I shot this on a tripod with the shutter set at 6 seconds. I wanted to smooth over the river and crank up those f-stops. In other shots from this evening, set at f/3.2 with the shutter at 1/80, the street lights just looked like street lights.

With instant playback on your camera's LED screen you can try different combinations of exposure settings until you get what you want.

Woldenberg Park, on the New Orleans riverfront

How To Talk To A Photographer, Pt. 36

The color temperature of a light source is something seen much better by a digital sensor than our eyes. Our eyes work with our brains to make things look normal. The digital sensor will more accurately register the intensities of red, green, or blue in every light source.

That's why I often must develop photos before delivering them to a client.

In this image I first adjusted the shade of the light on the speaker so she looked human and then separated the background layer and adjusted that color to look as intended.

This was the opening speaker at the APRA convention in 2015.