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Category: photography

November 10, 2024

How to Frame a Live Photo for Hogwarts or your Muggle Home

If you extend the wizardry of an iPhone’s Live Photo mode and add your imagery to a digital photo frame, you can transform your photography. It’s not so futuristic. Here’s how to bring more motion to reframe your photos today.

I’ve always been on the fence regarding the value of Live Photo mode on an iPhone. This feature appears to magically turn a still photo into one with three seconds of motion. Of course, the reality is these ‘magical’ photos are just little movie files (1.5 seconds before and after you snap).

Sure, creating a Live Photo is useful so you can later pick out a better ‘key photo’ frame. That’s especially helpful in a group shot if someone’s eyes are mid blink. But if you really want to capture a micro movie, I recommend just shooting in video mode for a few seconds.

But I think Apple is onto something that isn’t yet mainstream. And it connects with how you would want to display a Live Photo. I would offer that these moving photos are ideal in a digital photo frame.

The Perfect Moment can Take Longer than 3 Seconds
If you think about the Harry Potter films and all those ‘living’ paintings often seen in the background, the paintings are effectively digital photo frames magically displaying live portraits. Of course, the motion in each painting is specially curated to display a longer moment or a complete action from the character in the frame. If you went back and clocked them, they’re probably double the length of an iPhone’s Live Photo.

Often, a ‘moment’ in time that’s visually meaningful takes more than 3 seconds to complete. But as photographers (and aren’t we all?), we’re trained find that singular frame that captures it all.

But you can also just let the ‘live’ unfold. Sometimes, that’s so much easier. And Apple would say that’s exactly what a Live Photo offers.

Extended Live Photos are Better
However, I don’t think a Live Photo is entirely optimized for this task. It’s just too short, and you can’t be sure you’ll capture the complete end of the moment in front of you. Apple’s automation of its Live Photo process creates an imperfect crop of time versus how long the moment requires.

I feel you’ve really got to be running your iPhone in video mode for at least a few more seconds to ensure for that.

And in doing so, you’ll create what I’ll call an ‘extended live photo.’

Yes, it’s simply a seven to ten second video clip. But now your mindset should shift to still see it as one extended moment… with motion. (Do you feel your brain vibrating with this aha moment?)

Photographic Magic
Okay. So now, you’re creating something entirely new. Congratulations. You’re a wizard.

But what are you supposed to do with these extended live photos? Well, as I mentioned up top, they’d look great on a digital photo frame. All of your longer visual moments would still be short, but entirely complete without being abruptly cut off.

So, you’ve just got to bring a new mindset to your photography with the goal of finding and capturing these extended moments and then showing off your short videos on your digital photo frames. Soon your home will start to resemble the hallways at Hogwarts.

If you want to give it a shot, here are some ideas on where to spot perfect visual moments for this.

Opportunities for Extended Live Photos
First off, any moment for a still photo can also make for a great extended live photo.

  • People hugging
  • Blowing out birthday candles
  • Vacations
  • School reunions
  • Outdoor activities
  • Your pet simply staring at the camera

Find the Highlight from a Longer Video
If you’re already planning on taking a longer video, later selecting a five to ten second highlight will probably make for a great extended live photo.

Create a Living Group Portrait
We’ve been trained to think of a group shot as a still moment where everyone is smiling and looking at the camera.

I would offer that’s only part of the picture. The energy and motion that surrounds that one perfect frame is often as interesting, if not more so. In a group, the interpersonal dynamics are usually on full display (people talking and laughing together).

  • I’ve seen the New York Times use this visual strategy online when presenting people features. (It’s quite compelling.)

Enjoy Nature’s Beauty
If you’re a nature photographer, why not simply capture 10 seconds of that beautiful scene?

Adding in the ‘live’ will totally bring the still moment to life.

It’s a similar strategy as creating a live portrait, but much easier as nature is always strutting its stuff.

What About the Audio Track?
Technically, you don’t need the audio if you’re displaying your extended live photo on a digital frame. Sure, some of these frames can play sound, but I don’t expect you’ll use that functionality. (Photo frames are meant to be seen and not heard.)

But your extended live photos should still be optimized for the sound to heard. That’s because the clip may later be used with its audio track for a future use. So be mindful to trim these short video clips accordingly.

Keep it Moving
Digital photo frames are hardly new. I wouldn’t even call the product line that exciting anymore. But if you feed them with your own ‘extended’ live photos, that can be a real game changer.

And sometimes, you might naturally just shoot a video for only 10 seconds. Later, you’ll ask yourself how you might use it. Well, now you know!

I’m just a mere Muggle, but using this photographic trick for your digital photo frames will always look like magic.

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August 25, 2024

Consider Adding in Blur when Editing your Photos

Where once you could only find your background blur when you snapped a photo, now you have the luxury to create and position it later when you edit the image. I did that with this photo I took in New Orleans.

Unwanted blur in my photography was always my kryptonite. Getting a clean freeze of any motion drove my creative process. Finding background blur (what the pros call ‘bokeh’) was always a ‘nice to have’ upgrade.

But when Apple added ‘portrait photo’ mode to its iPhone cameras, that commoditized bokeh to the point where anyone could easily create background blur. It’s a nifty software trick that generates a narrower focus point on just the subject in your photo’s foreground.

And this type of software muscle can help you control the focus point in your photos even further. In fact, it gives you an amazing amount of creative control after you’ve snapped your photos.

It’s also a tool for me to fix or hide a problem in plain sight within a photo. Here are a few examples.

Blur Out the Background

My family and I were taking a walk at Calf Pasture Beach in Norwalk recently, and we passed by this tandem bicycle. Something about it appealed to me. So, I pulled out my iPhone and got the shot. It wasn’t in portrait mode. So, my iPhone couldn’t quickly blur out all the people in the background. But it was easy to do that in post using Adobe Lightroom.

Blur Out the Foreground

I didn’t like the person swimming in the foreground of this shot, because I want the viewer to focus on all the people fishing on the jetty. So, I simply adjusted the focus towards the background.

Blur Out an Unwanted Element in the Middle

I snapped this shot while on vacation near Orient, NY. I found the two turkeys crossing the road right in front of a car. (Silly turkeys!) I love the moment, but I didn’t like the license plate detail being so prominent. Sure, there are ways to mask it, but the plate would never look totally natural. Here, I avoided the problem entirely by simply narrowing the photo’s focus point and blurring the entire car.

Direct your Viewer’s Attention

If you’re not just trying to fix a problem, you can be free to get creative and add in some blur to help define what’s most important in the shot.

I liked adding blur to the background of this shot to help you focus more on this tiny rowboat heading out into the enormous ocean.

How to Adjust the Focus Point in your Photos
I add in my photo blur using Adobe Lightroom’s appropriately named ‘Lens Blur’ feature. I prefer using the ‘Cat Eye’ Bokeh setting. Then, you simply use the ‘Focus Range’ slider to adjust. (Note: You don’t have to be working with a ‘portrait’ photo.)

You can also adjust the focus point of an iPhone’s portrait photo. In the Photos app, go into edit mode. Then, simply tap on the subject you want to focus on. (Note: You don’t get the same kind of control as Adobe Lightroom offers.)

Use Blur to Give your Photos more Clarity
Don’t fear the blur. Use it!

Whether you want to add more creative flair to your photography or minimize an annoying element, generating some targeted blur can be just the solution you need.

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August 11, 2024

Our Computers aren’t Built to Handle so Many Videos and Photos

It’s really simple to create media with our smartphones, and we’ve all become home filmmakers. But it’s becoming increasingly hard to store all the media files. If you’re not worried that you’ll eventually run out of SSD storage space in your Mac, think again. Here’s what you can do about it. (And it won’t take up a lot of desk space.)

A year back, I upgraded from my older 4TB iMac to my new 2TB Mac Studio. My decision to go with only 50% of the internal storage was based on Apple’s more expensive internal SSD drive pricing. (My old iMac had a larger, but slower, spinning hard drive, which is no longer part of the line up.)

I always thought that Apple would forever offer increased internal storage without charging more. (Aren’t we all needing more storage as we document our lives with photos and videos?)

But once Apple moved from HDD spinning drives to next-generation SSD drives, that equation imploded.

  • An Apple Studio with a 4TB SSD costs $1,200 more!
  • You can’t even buy an iMac today with more than 2TB of storage. And that will set you back $600-$800.

Something’s very wrong. We’ve got less to work with and paying more for it.

Still, pricing aside, I successfully deluded myself that didn’t actually need 4TB. (Ha!)

Better Digital Housekeeping?
Sure, I had filled up my old iMac’s 4TB drive, but I told myself that maintaining and transferring all that content from computer to computer was unreasonable. I didn’t need all of it within my internal drive. instead, I would offload much of it to external drives and my G-Technology RAID for long-term storage.

I brainwashed myself that the new 2TB SSD in my Mac Studio should be more than enough once I performed some long-overdue digital housekeeping.

That was just wishful thinking.

Face the Inevitable
Sure, I’ve done some media management, but my goal of a 50% reduction was unobtainable. Within a year, my 2TB internal drive was bursting at the seams. (And we all know that Macs aren’t built to allow you to later upgrade internal storage.)

And Apple hasn’t helped any by continuing to improve its iPhone’s capabilities to generate RAW photos and advanced video codecs (including ProRes files). All this means larger media files.

We’re all filmmakers now with the critical need to house our content libraries somewhere. What did they think was going to happen when we moved these huge files over to our Macs?

iCloud Storage?
Sure, I could export terabytes of my media into Apple’s iCloud ecosystem. But come on… that’s not really a good value proposition.

  • 2TB costs $9.99/month
  • 6TB is $29.99/month

Let’s do the math:
I would have to go with the 6TB plan, which comes out to $360/year. While that is surprisingly competitive with external hard drive pricing, across multiple years… it gets too expensive.

Certainly, $360 x multiple years is more than the one-time cost of buying a companion external drive. I know physical drives won’t last forever, and you’re supposed to upgrade them every few years. So perhaps a future iCloud storage plan could be a reasonable solution… if the pricing comes down.

SSD Drives
But what is today’s answer when your internal drive gets filled up?

Well, that’s simple: You’ve got to buy an external drive and plug it in. (I know I didn’t have to tell you that.)

The real question is what kind of drive?

To match the speed of your internal drive, you’ll want to buy a similar technology. If you’ve got an internal SSD, you should look at getting an external SSD.

So, that’s what I did.

Video Editing
Another question is what you want to do with the drive.

My most demanding task is editing my family videos and personal creative projects, which are all shot in 4K. Many of my video files are generated by my iPhone 15 Pro Max.

Plus, I’ve got:

So, perhaps my video editing needs are more advanced than the average user.

4TB OWC Express 1M2 SSD
All this said, I decided to go with a fast NVMe M.2 SSD. And I wanted to take advantage of the Thunderbolt 4 interface my Mac Studio offers. While there are many Thunderbolt 3 drives on the market, only OWC appears to offer a USB4 drive (same as Thunderbolt 4).

Now, some of you will immediately question my need for such a fast drive, and others will point out that thunderbolt 3 drives are fast enough for my media workflow. I know.

But this is a dizzying choice. So, I figured it’s best to go with a little more oomph than not enough.

So, I landed on the bus-powered 4TB OWC Express 1M2 SSD. (It’s an enclosure with the 4TB NVMe prepopulated.)
This Express 1M2 is blazing-fast, boasting 3200MB/s. It gets positive reviews, it’s compact and so far… it’s working great for me.

The Price for Performance and Peace of Mind
No, it’s not exactly cheap. (Remember, SSD technology is pricy.)

Yes, I could have saved more and bought a less expensive NVMe separately and popped it in an empty OWC 1M2 enclosure. But… I’m a baby.

Really, I just want this thing to work out of the box. Sure, plenty of you may chide me for being so ‘tech-timid.’ But hey… I’m not ‘Mr. At Home with IT.’ I know my limits. I’m not building my drives. I’ll buy them pre-built, thank you very much.

I just want some peace of mind. (Sure, I back up my files, but that’s also a complex equation.)

So, yes, I’m willing to pay a little more.

Build a Big Enough Home for your Files
Let’s review:

  • I bought a new Mac that had 50% of the internal storage of my old Mac
  • I inevitably ran out of space
  • A year later, I spent more money to buy a companion OWC drive for my Mac
  • I plugged it into my Mac Studio via a Thunderbolt 4 port, and I’m back in business

Yes, my story has a happy ending, but I’m not that happy.

Sure, maybe I have more media storage needs than the average bear, but not by that much.

I think today’s new computers simply need more internal storage. The fact that Apple sells its base-level computers with only a 256GB SSD is absolutely silly. (I could choose a stronger word.)

The lesson here is over the years, you’re going to need a bigger hard drive for your computer. And you’re going to pay for it one way or another.

So, plan for the future.

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