Last week a crew from BH&G came to photograph both my kids’ rooms for an online story and I had the chance to work again with a stylist and professional photographer for a day and watch them create their magic in front of and behind the lens. Several shots included windows and I watched as the photographer took two different exposures of the window view in both dark and light settings.

For any one of you who photograph interiors with window scenes, you know that when you’ve got your camera set with a wide aperture and/or slow shutter speed to pull more light into the lens and brighten the room, often you end up with a window that is all white, or “blown out”, meaning the interior looks great but you cannot see the garden or scenery beyond, or any of the architecture of the window.

You can minimize this by waiting until the absolute perfect time of day when there is no direct sunlight coming through the window but that requires excellent timing, and there is an alternative. The photographer showed me this simple way he eliminates the problem by taking two different exposures and combining them with a Layer Mask.

Here’s an example of how it works using Pixlr – that free online photo editing software I’ve mentioned before with same tools as Photoshop. (If you have Photoshop or PE, the technique uses the same tools and similar steps.)  Here is the picture of our dining room table with plenty of light coming into the lens to show the details of the table and chair.

The problem?  You can barely see the detail of the doors or that there is a garden beyond because the French doors are blown out from the light entering through them. Quicken the shutter speed and the interior falls flat and the room gets dark but you can see the divided light panels of the door and the garden beyond.

In the real world, you can see both the room in bright natural light and the outside view, but the camera has limitations in these light conditions and can have difficulty capturing both, which is where clever photo editing comes in.

You can combine the two and reveal the outside view while maintaining the brightness of the interior (seen above). Here’s how with a handy photo editing trick to combines the two exposures in a few simple steps.

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Matt bought me a 35mm f/2 Nikkor lens for Christmas – I’ve wanted this lens for a long time so he was kind enough to get it for me.   We spent a few days in the Yosemite National Park area over the Christmas break, so I couldn’t wait to try it out. 

We stayed at the Tenaya Lodge at the southern entrance which was all decked out for the holidays, and one day that was filled with blue skies we drove into the National Park where we walked all around in our snow boots through the woods. 

The 35mm Nikkor f/2 lens is another fixed focal length lens like the 50mm I’ve mentioned and it has a low aperture setting for shallow depth of field for getting that cool “bokeh” or blurry effect in the background or foreground.  The aperture on this lens dials all the way up to f/22 for getting some really deep focus too! 

I took this lens with me for the day to see what it could do – here are a few images that I shot on that beautiful winter day.  Anyone who’s ever visited Yosemite Valley knows of the famous Ahwahnee Hotel at the base of a granite cliff – visually stunning anytime of year, but breathtaking in winter.  I love this image, I feel like I could crawl right into it just like you can in their giant walk-in fireplace inside the hotel.   

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On Tuesday night I was having a nice chat with some blog friends (Marian, Maria, and Cathe) at Marian’s book signing in my hometown and we were discussing blogging and photography, and the consensus was a that a 50mm 1.8 lens (or the more expensive 1.4) is a great blogger tool for those desirable beauty shots.

The 50mm is a fixed focal length (or “prime”) lens with wider aperture capability (refer to this post for a more in depth explanation on aperture.)  I bought my 50mm lens last December as an early Christmas present because I wanted the ability to snap pretty close-ups and to take Christmas tree bokeh pictures like this.  The ones with those pretty twinkle light orbs!

This image was taken with the little bowl of ornaments 7 feet away from the tree of twinkle lights and me positioned another 4 feet away from the bowl.   Camera settings with 50mm lens:  f/stop 1.8,  shutter speed 1/40,  ISO 800.

If you don’t know how to use or change the Manual setting yet, get ready to learn how with these fabulous online videos for visual learners that I’ve mentioned before offered by Shoot Fly Shoot.  Once you know how to change the aperture (or f-stop) to a wider setting, you’re all set to take great holiday bokeh shots, but it only works when you have a lens with that capability.

Kit lenses don’t go below a 3.5 f-stop, so you’ll achieve beautiful bokeh and shallow depth of field when you invest in a lens that allows you to go to a wider aperture of 2.0 or lower numerical setting.  A really nice affordable version is the 50mm f/1.8, offered for both Nikon and for Canon and for less than $125.

The lens isn’t just great for those pretty orbs in the background at Christmastime, it’s perfect for all those beauty shots where you want to achieve shallow depth of field beyond your subject matter (where the background or foreground beyond your focal point is blurred).

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I’m constantly experimenting with photo styling as I continue on this blog journey, and I absorb inspiration from all sorts of places, from magazines, food stylists, prop stylists, Pinterest too.  One of the things I’m always looking to improve is my photography.  I’ve come a long way since the beginning of this blog in 2009 but I think I still have a way to go, I aim high!

When I look at the portfolios of professional stylists, I’m always so impressed and inspired, and when I’ve had the opportunity to work or converse with them, I try to learn a thing or two from their many talents.  Here are five tips I’ve learned in the past year when it comes to styling and photographing a project, scene, recipe, or room.

Shoot from Above.   Taking a picture of a scene from a bird’s eye view is one additional angle to consider when taking pictures of your latest tablescape, project, or recipe.  This can be complicated for larger scenes because you need a lens that can capture all of the subject matter and the advantage of height above it, and it doesn’t work with everything, but it’s a great trick to keep in the back of your mind when you’re taking pictures from the side, think about snapping a picture from a high above angle too.

Agent Bauer

Halloween tablescape for Dabble Magazine

The Marion House Book

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