This weeks image was captured on our trip through regional NSW. I have driven past these cattle ramps hundreds of times, but until now I had not thought of stopping and creating something different in comparison to my usual landscape image. The location had the setting sun bathing the hills, trees and farm fences with an amazing orange light.

I tried a bunch of different angles before being rather happy with my initial image (located below). I love the natural lines in the image and the effect of the setting sun, but before hitting the road again I wanted to try something completely different. That’s when this weeks image was born.

The setting sun was dropping rapidly and I had about 10 minutes to capture the last intense rays of light for the day. I positioned my camera to face directly at the sun, but to create the effect I was after I placed the centre of the sun behind the ramp of the cattle dips side planks. There was no way I would be able to capture the image in just 1 shot so I set-up the camera to bracket 5 shots of +2, +1, 0, -1, -2. This was then processed into a HDR image with Photomatix. One of the issues with shooting directly into the sun is that it shows each and every dust or mark on your lens or filters. Hence I need to spend a good 15 minutes in Photoshop removing the marks with the healing brush and clone tools.

So next time your out shooting  why not capture your safety image and then experiment. Sure you wont get a winner every time but in the digital world you’ve lost nothing giving it a go.

Canon 40D @17mm, f22, ISO200, 30 seconds.

Equipment - For light trail photography you will need a camera that allows you to control the shutter speed for periods of 10 seconds and more.  Some point and shoot cameras have built in light trail functions.

Because the exposures are taken over a long period of time it is important to make sure the camera doesn’t move during the shot. By using a tripod or sitting the camera on a seat or ledge will yieled the best results. To also help reduce movement you should use a cable release or set a 2 second timer.

Camera Settings – You will want to set your ISO to relativity low like 200. This will help keep the noise down in your shot.  Set your camera to manual and dial in an aperture of about f11 to f22. Then set the shutter speed to say 20 ‘seconds. After that it is really a matter of trial and error. Increase your shutter speed if you aren’t capturing enough lines of light. If your images are overexposed decrease your aperture (E.g. Go from f11 to f16), however if your image is too dark increase your aperture. (E.g. 16-11 ). Remember that changing your aperture will affect your depth of field.

Tips to Success – When looking for locations try bridges or lookouts that overlook major roads. The best time to shoot is when you know that a particular road will be at its busiest. No good shooting at midnight and having no traffic. As for compositions try to get a mix of headlights and brakes lights in your image. Symmetrically composed shots also look great.

Canon 40D @17mm, f22, ISO400, 30 seconds.

Canon 40D @10mm, f19, ISO400, 62sec exposure

For week 23′s photo I arrived early to scope out my location and tried a few different compositions before the day light had disappeared. Bellow are my tips to getting the best results after sun down.

Use a Tripod - I really shouldn’t have to say this. If you have been following the Landscape 52 project for long enough you will know that I’m a big believer in a sturdy tripod no matter what the time of day or subject when it comes to landscapes. Night photography requires very long exposures so hand held is impossible.

Bring a Torch - A torch can come in very handy as it not only saves tripping over something in the dark it can help with setting up your gear and making sure you take all your gear home with you once your done. Nothing worse then getting home and finding you left your wide angle lens in the park. The torch may also come in handy for setting focus. Depending on how dark it is you may be able to shine the torch on a foreground object to achieve focus.

Use a Cable Release or Timer - To remove any shake whilst taking your photo use a cable release or a 2 sec timer. A cable release that has the ability to lock the shutter for longer periods than 30sec can be a great asset with long night time exposures as some times you may need to keep the shutter open for a few minutes.

Use a low ISO - Because you want long exposures you need to set your ISO to the lowest setting. Something like ISO 100, 200 or 400 depending on your camera. The low ISO will also help reduce noise which can become more apparent in long exposures.

M is for Manual - Do not fear the M on your camera. It opens up some really creative options.  Set your aperture to something between f8 and f22 and put the shutter speed onto bulb. Bulb allows you to decide how long the shutter is open for. It is usually the options after 30sec. This is where a cable release with the ability to lock the shutter open comes in handy.

Experiment - The next trick is to experiment with different exposure lengths. I usually try 30sec, 1 minute 1:30 and then 2 minutes. Depending on your results you can try some exposure lengths in-between these or try for something longer. There is no need to be exact with your times. I usually just count it out in my head.

Depending on your subject you may also like to try painting with light by using a torch or strobe. This can give some really interesting effects.

In other news, I’m very excited to announce that come October my wife Anna and I will be having our first child. We have already received some wonderful toys and clothing so I thought it would be fitting to set up  my strobes for a photo to announce the news.

So expect a few baby photography related blog posts come the end of the year and in 2012. Any tips you guys can give me would be more than welcome.

Canon 40D @10mm, f5.6, ISO800, 45 minutes of 30sec exposures stacked with StarStax

I have taken about 4 other star trails but still hadn’t been happy with the finished images. Heading out I knew I wanted to make sure I pumped my ISO up to at least 800 and that I wanted a fairly clear landscape. Ballow view offered the best bet with some amazing trees that had been ring-barked over 50 years ago.

This week I want to share with you some quick tips on shooting star trails but I will be concentrating on how I process my star trails with photoshop and a great new free program I use called StarStax. I will have a video post latter this year on the technical side of star trails from the field.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I couldn’t be much happier with the way the image turned out. My gamble on the rotation of the stars was spot on and I have a few more tricks up my sleeve for the next star trail adventure. Here are a few more shots taken the following day just down from my location the previous night.

Canon 40D @85mm, f5.6, ISO800, 180sec

Canon 40D @17mm, f4, ISO800, 250sec

]]> http://www.thephotojourney.com/2011/06/24/star-trails-ballow-view/feed/ 2 http://www.thephotojourney.com/2011/06/03/self-sportraits/ http://www.thephotojourney.com/2011/06/03/self-sportraits/#comments Fri, 03 Jun 2011 01:35:40 +0000 Scott http://www.thephotojourney.com/?p=1822 After weeks of organising, designing and shooting I have completed my first ever body of work. My Self Sportraits. Since my first ever Self Sportrait back in July of 2009 the series has received many questions and compliments. Today I want to share with you my journey and a few behind the scenes moments.

It has been a personal project inspired by two of my most idolised photographers, Chase Jarvis and Zack Arias. Chase and Zack have always been advocates for setting yourself personal projects to help develop your creative skills and to extend your portfolio. Chase is also a great believer in sharing your knowledge. This prompted me to create my BTS video which after just over 1 year has been viewed over  21,000 times and I really have to thank one of my favorite bloggers Udi Tirosh who featured the video on his blog diyphotography.net. His website is a great inspiration to make the most of your gear and budget.

Seamless White Background @ Home Tutorial from Scott Bourke on Vimeo.

I have had loads of emails asking for more BTS from the series. So I have decided to put together a timelapse video from my rugby shot. I’m really getting into the timelapse stuff of late.

So thanks to everyone that lent me gear or gave my words of encouragement. Whilst it is my first ever body of work I still plan on adding to it over time so stay tuned for plenty more shots, who knows ping-pong may be on its way.

To finish off here are a few of my recent setup shots you guys seem to crave.

After putting my skateboard shot off for long enough due to the fact I had no idea how to execute my idea, I finally gave it a crack and it came out better than expected. I think this could be one of my best ever Self Sportraits.

After the success of my Tennis Sportrait int he stairwell I decided to give it another go with a few modifications for my AFL shot. These setups take much longer to position the camera angle and lights and even more time to get an image I’m happy with. The shadow has been dropped-in in post.

This week I have put together an in-depth (28min) post processing tutorial where I take you through Photomatix, Lightroom 2 and Photoshop. Because it is a little long I have also created a 1 min fast forward so you can get a quick glimpse of what I will cover to gauge if the tutorial will be of interest to you.

Many people have been inquiring how I manage to keep my HDR images looking so natural and fairly noise free. These tips are shared in the full length video plus a few other tricks.

Here is the 1 min fast forward teaser.

Here is the full narrated tutorial.

Canon 40D @ 14mm, f16, ISO200 with Tiffen HT Circular Polarizer. HDR +2, 0, -2 merged in Photomatix

After some rather poor weather I decided a mid week sunrise shoot was in order. So I headed out to Wellington Point about 30 minutes drive from Brisbanes CBD at 4:30am to see what would be on offer. Wellington point has some great subjects to shoot like its small jetty, rockpools(as seen in this weeks video) and who can forget the mangroves.

The on location video this week shows you how changing your white balance can boost your sunrises or sunset shots. It is also interesting to play with your WB when shooting cityscapes at night as settings like tungsten can really make your city jump off the night sky.

So this week try shooting the same location with differing WB settings as see how you go.

If you are enjoying the tips and tricks from the site please join the Facebook fan page here.

Figure 1; Sandy Beach, NSW Sunrise

Having an amazing sunrise/sunset location is a great start like the image above that I captured at Sandy Beach, NSW.

However you will notice that in Figure 2 whilst still at the same location as Figure 1 and taken only 5 minutes later that the introduction of a stick to the foreground of the frame gives the image a feeling of depth and scale for the viewer to connect with. The fact that the stick is more of a silhouette is a great way to balance the bright vibrant sky.

Figure 2; Introduction of foreground subject

Just about anything can be used as a foreground subject like boats, shells, rocks, people, tall grass – the list goes on. The main idea of the subject is for it to be something the viewer can relate too and that will lead their eye into the image.

There is nothing wrong with physically positioning the subject in the frame like I have done with the stick. I actually found the stick further up the beach as I walked to my location. Try out a few positions to see what works.

The next trick is to make sure that when you set your focus that you do not focus on the horizon or the clouds. Set your focus on the foreground subject or something 1/3rd into the frame. For example, I could focus on the small rocks that are closer to the camera than the stick in Figure 2. This will give you sharp focus from the front to the back with an aperture of about f16.

Here is another example of layering with the silhoutte of the Greek Island building as my foreground and the cruise ship in my middle ground.

Canon 40D @ 10mm, f14 - Santorini Sunset

Why not try incorporating a foreground subject in your next landscape shot. I would love to see how you go so drop me a line in the comments or via the contact page.

Its not the most amazing subject to be shooting for the weeks image but it will have to do considering the devastating flood Queensland has been hit by. I haven’t had another chance to go out shooting this week with volunteering to cleanup some of the worst affected areas in Brisbane by pushing mud out of homes.

This is a 3 image stitch taken with my Canon 40D and a 50mm f1.8 prime lens. The real trick to a good stitched panorama is to make sure that there is at least a 25% overlap from 1 image to the next. All this and more is explained in my first of many video tutorials for the Landscape 52 Project.

If there is a post processing tutorial you would like me to do please drop me a line on the contacts page.

]]> http://www.thephotojourney.com/2011/01/21/stitched-panorama-video-tutorial-252/feed/ 0 http://www.thephotojourney.com/2010/12/27/inspired-by-sound-bts-video/ http://www.thephotojourney.com/2010/12/27/inspired-by-sound-bts-video/#comments Sun, 26 Dec 2010 21:20:00 +0000 Scott http://www.thephotojourney.com/?p=1411 Here is the last video in the series of videos of how I took my photos for this years Canon Photo5 Competition. Check out the other photo5 blog posts here.

Brief 5 was to listen to a sound clip from the Canon website and use it as inspiration for the final image.

The sound reminded me of my grandfather snoring so I had the inspiration and now I just needed to come up with how to setup the lights and camera to match my minds eye.

Once again it was recorded and edited all on my iPhone 4. Interesting exercise. Love to hear your comments.

Brief 3 was to be a black and white shot capturing smoke from the supplied incense stick. I had shot smoke before but this time I wanted to engage the viewer with a message not just have them think, “Hey kewl smoke shots”. I wanted to get a message out about the effects of smoking to a persons health. I had been searching for an empty packet for the shoot for about a week when Anna managed to come across a drenched packet in the middle of the street near her work. It has been raining 2 weeks solid here so the packet had certainly copped a beating. It was perfect for the look I was going for.

Check out the BTS video on how I setup for shooting the smoke and a few tips of taking your own smoke shots. You may want to check out a older blog post I did on this with post processing video also. Check it out here – Smokin…Tutorial

Once again it was recorded and edited all on my iPhone 4. Interesting exercise. Love to hear your comments.

]]> http://www.thephotojourney.com/2010/10/22/incense-brief/feed/ 1 http://www.thephotojourney.com/2010/10/18/bubble-gum-brief-video-tutorial/ http://www.thephotojourney.com/2010/10/18/bubble-gum-brief-video-tutorial/#comments Mon, 18 Oct 2010 05:27:23 +0000 Scott http://www.thephotojourney.com/?p=1022 So this is the first in a series of videos on how I took my photos for this years Canon Photo5 Competition. The way the free competition works is Canon send out a couple of thousand brown boxes with 5 random briefs for the entrant to complete. This year Canon announced a portfolio category that got me really excited to complete all 5 briefs. For more information on the competition check out the website.

Brief 2 was a portrait that had to include some bubble gum that they had supplied. I hated the stuff as a kid and I still do. I was very depressed to see it in the box at first. I wanted to capture something that showed the bubble gum inflated and then popped. My initial idea had been done by numerous other competitors so I wanted something totally different and eye catching. Then it hit me a double exposure would capture both states of the balloon, but first I had to work out how the heck to do it on a digital camera. I did some research and came across an article about an international fashion photographer called Joe Oppedisano. He took some amazing double exposures on film back in the 80/90′s in a series titles “Inner Self”. They were amazing and instantly I pictured my shot. Now I just had to work out how to do it in camera. There was to be no Photoshop here.

I was wrapped with how the final image turned out. I couldn’t have pulled it off without my wife Anna who put up with my directions of moving an inch this way and an inch that way. She managed to blow some great bubbles. Especially considering we were up till midnight shooting.

Check out the BTS video on how I did it. It was recorded and edited all on my iPhone 4. Interesting exercise. Love to hear your comments.