Light

Paprika

Chair

Paint

Drops

Thistle

I have been following the situation in Japan after the earthquake and tsunami. Boston.com may have the most impressive gallery of photographs.

The risk of nuclear meltdown has made people worried even here in Finland. I guess this is part of globalization, you feel that things happen in the neighbourhood although there is no scenario that I can see which would spread any fallout this far. Instead, people should think of how to help those in Japan who are really affected.

Another things is that all kinds of doomsayers are appearing, predicting this and that happening, feasting on the worry of people. As if the position of planets, as an example, could have something to do with things like this.

Coming back to photography, I have been reading the Finnish translation of Michael Freeman's Perfect Exposure: The Professional's Guide to Capturing Perfect Digital Photographs, which is a competent book, although not suitable for beginners. I have Freeman's The Photographer’s Eye, but this one I got from the public library, as well as the Pocket Gardens book I wrote about yesterday.

I must once again praise the reservation system of Finnish libraries (Helmet): you can reserve a book on the net, and the libraries take care of the logistics of delivering the book to the library you specify, and inform you when it is available for picking up. Which reminds me to go and look what else is available there on photography.

One aspect of reading a book on photography is that one becomes more self-conscious when taking photographs, which for me isn't such a good thing, and the results may not be so good either. But in the long run it is good to learn new things.

For example, the behaviour of color when exposing the scene differently was very well described by Freeman, and this may help in taking just the right exposure. Also, Freeman brought up the LightZone program, which I have used occasionally, and explained how it is related to Adams' zone system, something which I hadn't realized before.