In 2010 I decided to change my approach.  I wanted every shot to have the potential to be a good photograph.  To be able to do that, I needed to understand photography well beyond focusing and pressing the shutter button.  I turned to my old, reliable friend, the podcast.  Since I listen to several TWIT podcasts, I started listening to This Week in Photography.  That podcast had been going for several years, so I started with number one and went through the backlog until I caught up.  Along the way, one of the members of TWiP started his own podcast, Photo Focus.  I started listening to that one too.  There were a few other podcasts that I occasionally listened to, but most of what I learned came from TWiP and Photo Focus.

Of course, everyone on the podcasts was saying, “take more pictures.”  So in 2010 I did take more pictures, more than 40,000.  In the past I had used Google’s free photography management software, Picasa.  I highly recommend it and the price is right, but in the podcasts everyone was using Aperture (an Apple only program) or Adobe Lightroom.  I picked up a copy of Lightroom and am learning to use that.  (Lightroom keeps track of the total number of pictures on my computer.  That is where I am getting all these numbers.)   I also bought a copy of Adobe Photoshop Elements.  It does 95% of what the full version of Photoshop does, but at a small fraction of the price.

This year I am doing a 365 project.  This involves taking and publishing a picture every day for a year.  If you look at my numbers, taking a picture every day is not a problem for me.  Last year I took 5000 pictures with the point-and-shoot I keep in my jacket pocket.  But a 365 project is more than just taking a picture every day.  I joined a Flickr group called 365: the 2011 edition.  Each week there is a new theme for our photos.  I learned early on in the podcasts that themes make better photographers.  Anyone can take a picture of an interesting topic in good light, but by restricting the topic to a theme requires more skill, not just technical skill, but creative skill. 

By participating in this 365 group (there are more than 800 members), I am also getting more people to look at my pictures and give me valuable feedback.  Social networking is important in photography.  Last year I started posting my Flickr pictures in Facebook.  From that, my average picture view went from 3 to 30.  Now that I am a part of a group where everyone is interested in making better pictures, I am looking at more pictures and more people are looking at my pictures.  It’s going to be an exciting year in picture taking.  There is still time to join us.

It is important that all pictures maintain an aspect ratio of 1:1.  The aspect ratio is the relationship between the pictures width and height.  If a picture is resized to half its original width, its height must also be half of the original.  Maintaining the aspect ratio only becomes important when a picture is resized. The photo below is 500 pixels wide and 333 pixels tall. 500/333 is 1.5.  So if this picture is resized, the resulting width divided by height should be 1.5 in order to maintain the original’s 1 to 1 aspect ratio.

A 1:1 aspect ratio does not necessarily mean the width divided by height equals one.  This would only be the case if the original photo is square.  Most cameras do not take square pictures.  As a result, most width to height ratios are not equal to one.

Here is a photo with a 1:1 aspect ratio (500 x 333). Width/height = 1.5.

Here are two pictures which do not have 1:1 aspect ratios.

The above picture is 500×150. Width/height = 3.33.

The picture above is 333×333. That makes width/height = 1, but the that ratio needs to be 1.5 to keep a 1:1 aspect ratio for the picture.

It is possible to resize a picture keeping the aspect ratio of 1 to 1. Here is a correctly resized picture.

The above picture is 250×167. This is the correct aspect ratio (250/167=1.5).

Often, a picture will maintain its 1:1 aspect ration when resized by dragging a corner (not an edge). The above picture was resized in this way.

If you are not familiar with HDR, it’s probably best explained with an example.  Here is a normally exposed picture of the Liberty Bell.

The new home to the Liberty Bell is just across the street from Independence Hall.  A window has been fashioned just behind the bell so that as one views the bell, Independence Hall is right there in the background.   Most cameras will average the amount of light in the picture and create an image similar to what I have above.  Because of the bright light behind the bell, the shutter speed has been reduced to 1/100 of a second.  At that quick speed the bell is dark and almost shadow like.  Independence Hall is not much better.  At 1/100 of a second there is too much light to get a good outline of the tower.  It is all white.

To get a good bell picture, the shutter speed needs to be around 1/30 of a second.  Independence Hall is going to require a much faster shutter at around 1/400 of a second.  HDR is the process of taking all three of these exposures and putting them together in one picture with all the parts exposed correctly.

Over Exposed	Normal Exposure	Under Exposed	HDR – combined exposures from all three pictures

As you can see from that last picture, the HDR is a combination of all three photos, bringing out the best parts of each picture.  If you would like to see higher resolution versions of any of the above pictures, each is linked to the original.

If you have an SLR, there is a good chance your camera has a setting that will do multiple exposures with one press of the button.  It is called Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB).  All the Canon SLRs (including my five year old Rebel XT) will do three exposures at different shutter speeds.  Some of the Nikons will do up to nine different exposures.  I found this chart which shows many models along with the number of frames of AEB.

Many people use a tripod when doing HDR photography.  I was on vacation at many locations where a tripod was not practical or permitted.  All of my pictures were hand held.  That means each one has a little bit of movement.  I was able to align the images when I did my HDR processing.

I played around with several programs before deciding Photomatix was the best.  It’s used by most of the people I know doing HDR.  For me, the killer feature is Batch Processing.  I took 1200 HDR photographs during my vacation.  Each one consisted of three individual pictures.  All I had to do was point Photomatix to the folder with all my photos.  Twenty-four hours later, all my HDRs were finished.  If I would have done those by hand, I would still be going through my files.

Of course, there are many artistic options when doing HDR processing.  It is easy to make a photograph look like a painting.  Here is my favorite version of the Liberty Bell cropped as an 8×10.