In Focus, Bangkok Photography Blog › August 20th, 2011

20 August: Koh Samed/Balancing Color in Photoshop CS5

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Feature Photograph *menu

Fuji x100 @F8 1/60th ISO 200

This is Part Four in our “Pointing Your Camera” series which is designed to help you filter the scene your eyes are seeing, and find that memorable scene your camera can see. Part One
, Part Two, and Part Three
before this are worthwhile reading.

I picked these three shots to make a point. When you’re deciding what to point your camera at, think about if you want to show a picture of a pretty building, or if you want to tell a story of a pretty building. Allow me to elaborate:

When I first drove past the grange I immediately knew I’d want to take a picture of the structure, so I drove around from all four sides, parked the car, walked around the four sides, and decided there were three different views from two different
sides I wanted to photograph. Each side would be compositionally different from the other.

The Feature Photograph is my favorite, but it may not be yours. I’ll tell you why I photographed each the way I did, and maybe you can tell me which you like better.

The Feature Photograph tells the story of how the grange is placed in its community. It shows it being located next to its own gas pumps where its members come to fuel their vehicles. It’s on a main boulevard directly before the Interstate 5 entrance.
The I5 South sign acts as a distant foreground anchor and I love the way the light illuminates it’s surface.

I came back the next day at dusk to get this picture knowing the sun would be behind me, shining on the I5 South sign, the gas pump sign, the cars, and of course the grange building itself. The clouds in the background were a bonus, and lend a beautiful
contrast between the dark blue/grey clouds and faint yellow patina of the metal siding of the grange building.

There is so much in this scene that it’s almost ‘too’ busy, and while normally I shy away from busy scenes, in this case it’s what made the image. You can actually ‘feel’ the life surrounding
this grange building.

Fuji x100 @F8 1/350th ISO 200

This image of the same grange building and even the same side of the building, but from a different angle isolating the building from its environment so I could focus on the building itself. I made this capture on the first day I did the walk around.

I was hoping to catch the light behind me as I did in the first one, but despite doing this many times I was still surprised with how quickly this type of light makes its appearance and then disappears into darkness. I made four exposures from this position,
one after the other, and by the time I was done and thinking about my other view the sun had dropped behind the horizon and darkness enveloped the scene.

Can you tell the suns direction behind me when looking at the shadow of the street light to the right of the middle door and in between the two windows?

When the sun is at this steep angle its very intense allowing an F8 aperture and fast shutter speed virtually guaranteeing a perfect critical focus and adequate depth of field (DOF) along with underexposing the sky background resulting
in the deep blue. The resulting exposure gives nice deep colors, reflections on the steel siding, and an illuminated loading dock door entryway. Love it!

It’s a nice picture of a unique building, but it sits alone without the rich context of its environment. You can’t tell if it’s in the middle of a dirt field, a big parking lot, a bustling downtown, or even at an airport. You must be satisfied with the building itself and the satisfying way the setting sun embosses its features.

Fuji x100 @F11 1/200th ISO 200

The other interesting view showing several major features the other views didn’t. It shows the high catwalks and the enclosed ladder the controller needs to climb into position, the two additional tanks, and did you notice the freight car underneath
the local gangs graffiti? Those big yellow letters really set off the scene.

From these three images you can tell how thinking what you point your camera at rewards you with three very different views of the same building and remarkably different exposures than if you’d just pointed and shot in an automatic mode without
any sort of exposure compensation (Ev).

This ends our “Pointing Your Camera” series and I hope you’ve enjoyed it. More, I hope you’ve taken at least a small part with you. Sharing ideas is the best gift possible, and I look forward to seeing yours.

Koh Samed (Ko Samet) *menu

Khunklit has been a regular contributor to our Infocus Weekly and Bangkok Images. His images often give that “raw” feeling you get from actually being there. If he shows you an image or a beach you’d swear you can feel the sand between your toes. Real images you can’t help but enjoy. Working in Southern Germany as an engineer he can’t wait to get his few months of vacation each year to travel SEA.

Here are a few images of (Ko Samet) Koh Samed taken in January 2010 with a Canon EOS 50D. The island derives its name from the cajeput tree and lies in Rayong Province & is part of a marine national park.

To get there you take a boat from the mainland village of Ban Phe to Na Dan harbour or to one of the beaches such as Ao Wong Deuan.

Boats at Ban Phe harbour, the first is a wooden fishing boat, the second from the Sea Fisheries Department.

Colorful fishing boats at Na Dan harbour, these boats are usually used to transport people and goods to & from the mainland.

Low hanging electrical cables can be used as washing lines. Thais are very practical people.

On This road between the harbour & beach people zoom up and down day & night.

Here are a sampling of some of the beaches on Samed Island.

As soon as the sun goes down bungalow operators take over the Hat Sai Kaew beach, and set up their tables, mats and light their grills. In the busy season there are also fire shows every night.

Sometimes I'm up before dawn and walk around the island, sometimes people sit on the beach waiting for the sunrise, sometimes they are lying there from the night before with mange dogs keeping them company.

Between Hat Sai Kaew (Diamond Beach) and Ao Hin Khok beach is a rocky point with a mermaid & prince statue atop, these represent characters of the Thai classical poet Sunthorn Phu from his epic work Phra Aphai Mani.

From this point I captured the Monks on their alms rounds, not far away was a decorated Naga stairway leading to some bungalows.

For breakfast I like to go back to the main road and sit at an open front restaurant and watch the vendors, masseuses and tourists arriving on the island from the mainland, either walking or riding on overloaded pickup trucks.

Some popular vendors walk & sell to the locals, its nice to watch them interacting with each other, I'm hardly noticed taken photos at this time of the morning.

Sometimes when certain important people arrive on the island, these navy boats accompany them.

These images were taken in January 2007 with a Canon Powershot S5 IS on a boat trip around the island.

Years ago I would visit Samed Island regularly as a quiet getaway when traveling around Thailand and the bordering countries, it was the place to go when I had overspent elsewhere, here I would slow down and recover before moving on. Now I visit less often as the motor boats and jet skis slowly take over the nicest beaches.

Khunklit

Balancing Color in Photoshop CS5 *menu

As you begin to understand light you will notice reflected light will often cast unwanted colors from other elements of the frame on to your main subject. Perfectly arranged lighting in a studio prevents this, but when working outdoors or in difficult environments it’s often impossible to ‘prevent’ reflected color, so you’ll need to learn some simple techniques to compensate for the color cast.

If you’re shooting RAW images you can use a grey card or a product such as the Xrite Color Checker Passport I reviewed here. Correcting color through your white balance first is always the preferred choice asI demonstrated in this tutorial, yet occasionally you’ll still need to make small adjustments in the color balance.

But sometimes you’re shooting jpegs from a small point and shoot compact, or maybe you finish processed an image already and then noticed the color needs to be tweaked just a bit. Knowing how to use Adobe’s CS5 Photoshop to balance color is a very useful skill.