As you may have gathered, I have been taking pictures of some local glassblowers and the work they produce. I have also been trying to take pics of the guys in action, but I was missing one key piece of equipment – a proper lens filter.

The glass that these guys use for their artistic glasswork is called borosilicate. When it is introduced into the flame, you get a very long sodium flare, as illustrated by the photo at left. The best way to counter this effect is to employ a Didymium filter. The glassworkers have eyewear made from it, and you can order large square pieces of it to use as a type of shield for a glassworking station. But you cannot easily find a camera filter made from this stuff. So I contacted the company that the glassworkers get their eyewear from. Turns out that Aura Lens, based in Minnesota, can take a normal UV filter, remove the filter element, and replace it with Didymium treated glass. Mine arrived last week (cost was roughly $70).

Friday I went to the glassworkers studio and took about 150 shots. The picture at the top of this article was shot through the Didymium filter. Compare that to the unfiltered shot further down and you can really see the difference.

Lighting these situations can be pretty tricky, depending on what you want to show. For a few of the pics, I wanted to be sure I got the workers hands in the image, or part of their workspace. To accomplish this, I placed my homemade softbox on my Olympus FL-36 flash, mounted on my Gorillapod and fired with the Cactus remote triggers. I moved it around a bit during the shoot, and was pleased with the results.

I love the doors that photography and website management and consulting have opened for me. I have been able to travel to some interesting places (Detroit Auto Show, Toronto) and also meet interesting people and learn about new things (the glassblowing, a recent photo shoot about wine). I am especially pleased to be involved in the main project these glassblowers are working on – The Community Carbon Project. Cool glassware that is recycled and useful. Can’t beat that.

On a recent trip to the grocery store, I decided to pick up a magazine. I do this once in a while, most typically when I am travelling. I know I need to learn more about photography though, and magazines are a more conducive format for reading at home. Much better than breaking out the laptop or anything like that. So I looked at the selection. As I recall, there were probably 5 or 6 titles on the shelf. For some reason, Shutterbug stood out. Well, not just “some reason”. The cover was intriguing, and the big focus of the month was on lighting, which I have been wanting to know more about. And this is where they kind of lost me.

I am well aware that I know next to nothing about photography. I am more than willing to admit it to anyone. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to learn. I appreciate the problem that the magazine faces – they need to be applicable to the widest possible audience. But there are subtle things they could have done in their lighting articles that would have really helped a noob like me, and that experienced readers could have glanced over pretty quickly. A sidebar, or even a one page article, on how to make a lighting system work with your camera, would have been huge. When it comes to lighting, I am still as lost as I was before I bought this issue.

That isn’t to say that the whole thing was a waste. The story about the MyStudio 20 Internet Photo Studio (a very useful mini studio for small product photos) was very valuable, and told me all I need to know to use the product (and yes, it convinced me I need to own one). There was a good article on posing your subjects for portraits, as well as one on “Helping Clients Hire You.” One especially helpful article (entitled “Location Shoot: Studio Results”), talked about the different commercial products for diffusing light – including the Gary Fong Lightsphere, Hughes Soft Light Reflector, the LumiQuest Soft Screen Diffuser for on-camera flashes, Photoflex Litediscs, and my personal favorite (which I will be buying soon) – the LumiQuest ProMax System.

As I sit here going back through it right now though, a strange trend just popped up. Most of the pages I have flagged are ads. Even though I happily peruse B&H Photo’s website all the time, products aren’t displayed in quite the same way. You pretty well have to know what you are looking for which, as a newbie, I do not. These ads are hugely valuable to help with that.

Other companies that I flagged include ShutterbugStoreFront.com (for selling images), dotphoto.com (also for selling images), BayPhoto.com (I want to try them for Greeting Card production), Meridian Professional Imaging (for print fulfillment), DigiLabs (for coffee table books), PhotoArtsUSA.com (for stock commissions), Photographers Edge (for greeting cards), Golden Color (free 16×20 with order), and more (I am tired of typing links).

So even though the lighting articles didn’t help me as much as they could, I think the magazine still holds value. In fact, I am likely going to subscribe. Most of these businesses I mention above are not ones I would have seen in a Google search, nor would I have seen their banner ads if they even had them. But the print advertising worked, and for that I am happy. Now if I can sell some more images so I can afford all the stuff I want to buy now. Wait, today is my birthday – maybe I’ll treat myself to a present…

Sometimes you take a picture and you know in your mind that it could have been different or better if you had taken it on a different day or at a different time. Lighting can play a huge role in what your picture conveys. And this is where “Creative Photoshop Lighting Techniques” comes into play.

Beware. Using techniques in this book could upset the purists out there. This review is not to fuel either side of that debate. To me this is a personal choice that people make.

For those that have not yet read “Understanding Exposure”, the first chapter of the book is devoted to light – how it works, how we see it, and the mood it can convey. While some of it might seem obvious, if you have never sat down and read about these subjects, it can be very helpful to your photography in general.

Subsequent chapters teach you how to use a variety of functions that you may not have known were in Photoshop (I certainly didn’t). Lighting effects filters, and how to change the light quality to make a scene appear warmer or colder are but a few of the topics covered. Others techniques covered include converting an overcast day to a sunny day, creating lightning, creating shadows and casting light from various directions, creating smoke and many, many more. All techniques have easy to follow, step by step instructions that are easily applicable to your specific project.

“Creative Photoshop Lighting Techniques” is a book worthy of any photographers bookshelf. Even advanced Photoshop users are likely to find value in this book. But as a novice/ intermediate Photoshop user, this book has provided me with a wealth of new ideas for both taking and retouching my photographs. If you are in doubt, check it out at your local library first. Once you do that, I can pretty much promise that you will be going to Amazon or your favorite bookseller to get a copy of your own. This is what happened to me, and I expect to be using it as a reference for many years to come.