Cory Photography with Tom and Pat Cory

Smoky Mountains  NP, 2009

Newsletter, March 2009 Continued

 Try a variety of compositions from environmental images, where you include the entire scene, to close-ups where you show the details of individual flowers. It's also fun to experiment with different styles from documentary to abstract to impressionistic.

 

 One you've decided on your composition, the next decision is your depth of field, or range of sharp focus.  For a very shallow depth of field, set your aperture setting (F/stop) to a wide opening (little number).  For more depth of field, choose a smaller lens opening (big number). On DSLRs you will always be looking with your lens wide open so remember if you have your lens set at a smaller f/stop you will have more depth of field than you see when you look through the viewfinder. A depth of field preview button can come in handy in these situations. It is easier to blur the background when it is several feet behind your subject and/or when you are using a longer focal length lens. When using a narrow depth of field, it may be best to manually focus your lens.

 

 Exposure can sometimes be a bit tricky with close-ups of flowers.  Since white and yellow flowers are very light in color, you may find that your camera under-exposes your images of them.  Check your histogram to make sure that the exposure looks reasonable.  Then if there is a problem, it's easy to use your exposure compensation button or menu selection to add a little light to the image.  If you're not sure, just take your image at two or more setting and then check later to see which exposure you prefer. Then you'll know what to do the next time.

 

 So, while it's still cold and nasty, go out and buy that bunch of flowers and experiment with various compositions and camera settings so that when spring comes you will be prepared to really enjoy your wildflower photography.

 

 PMA 2009

 

 The PMA convention in Las Vegas just concluded.  Click here to see information on all the new product announcements.

 

 Connections

 

 When the article about our Smokies workshop appeared in Sky Magazine I was thinking about how this came to be and it reminded me of one of our favorite PBS programs of all time, a program called Connections where James Burke began with an event and through a number of connections, finally ended up with a seemingly unrelated event. Since so many photographers would like to get their work out to other people we thought you might be interested in our network of connections with the article.

 

 Many years ago we wrote our first book, Notes from the Field, and we started to put together some note cards.  On a whim (I'm still terribly shy about these things) I made an appointment and stopped by the Tennessee Aquarium to see if they were interested in either the book or the notecards for their gift shop. Well, the answer was they were nice, but not really what they felt would fit there. But in the discussion it came out that we offered photography workshops in the Smokies. The person I was talking to mentioned that the aquarium sponsored member programs and maybe I should talk to the person who arranged those.  So I was introduced to Betty Miles, we set up a Smokies workshop as a member program, and since then we have offered many member programs of different types in conjunction with the aquarium. It has been a very rewarding relationship.

 

 Fast forward about 10 years. Free lance writer Lynn Coulter writes a series of articles for Sky Magazine on Learning Curves.  Lynn was interested in writing one about digital photography and the Smoky Mountains.  Lynn is a member of the TN Aquarium and remembered seeing our names in conjunction with photography workshops in the member magazine Riverwatch. She contacted us and it just so happened that we had a Smokies workshop scheduled for the next week and she was able to attend it. Serendipity is a wonderful thing.

 

 We are believers that photographing just for the personal enjoyment of it is reason enough to photograph. But some people do want to go that additional step and do something else with their images. The point is that we never started out with the goal of having someone join us at a workshop and write an article about it. But we did want to make our photography into a business so we got out and started letting people know what we did.  If you let people know what you do or would like to do, you just never know where it might lead. The more people you talk to, the more connections you make, and the more likely serendipity is to strike. And a little hard work, perseverance, and a tolerance of rejection doesn't hurt either.

 

 But on your journey, it is important to keep your enthusiasm for photography itself and continue to photograph simply for the enjoyment of it.