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The artistic-seeming tones of white on white brings to mind the innocence of youth, the fabric of dreams and long, hot summer days. In photography, the effect can be easily achieved by choosing elements of a white or pastel color placed on a white or very light background.

White curtains blowing in the breeze, white birches tufted with cotton snow, or a feather storm of a pillow fight are qualifiers for a high key photo. The center of interest benefits from a darker tone, contrasting with the light tones of the surrounding environment and bringing the eye to the action. Subtle shades of white and gray enhance the colors or darker tones of the main subject.

Often, a white vignetting filter can be used judiciously, blending the portion of the subject with the background. To make a vignetting filter, cut a four inch square from some colorless, pliable, and translucent material. In the center cut a small (one half by three quarter inch) hole with a nail scissors. Place the vignetter in about one half inch in front of the lens. Extra light may be aimed at the vignetter for a whiter effect. Vignetting can also be achieved with the computer. In your photo editor, choose the airbrush set at 300 pixels wide and 50% strength. Pass the brush repeatedly around the edges of the image, creating the fade out effect. When making the original exposure set the camera to overexpose the subject one f stop. The reason for this is that the camera light sensor will try to expose whites as light gray, underexposing the image.

In printing, care should be taken to insure a proper ratio of white, near white and deeper tones. If the photo is printed too dark, the high key effect is lost, and if printed too light, no detail will be discernible in the near-white tones. For a water color effect, leave lots of room around the edges (white) and mat carefully using white, black, or delicate pastel colors. A water color filter will further enhance the high key effect. If you have children, make a list of the white clothes available for a magical white on white shoot. They’ll all come out like angels.

If you do something, be the best at it.

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As a newspaper photographer I’ve taken quite a few `snatch shots’, which are photographs of someone that were taken without the person in the picture being aware of it.

Actually there are two kinds of snatch shots, long range and close range. Long range shots are usually but not always taken with a zoom lens, usually from several hundred yards away. Close range snatch shots are best taken with a medium wide angle lens and they are taken from just a few yards away.

Let’s assume that you plan to take a long range snatch shot, that your subject (or prey, whichever way you want to look at it) is in a public park and that you are perhaps a couple of hundred yards away from him.
Several things could happen.

You might casually raise your camera and pretend to be taking pictures of the park. Point it in several directions and perhaps play around with the camera controls to make it look as if you’re adjusting it, maybe changing the aperture or shutter speed.

But at some stage you’ll have to point the camera in his direction, and this is where the problems can begin.
He may not be quite sure what you’re taking a picture of; he may think that you’re just taking a picture of the park or he may suspect that you’re taking a picture of him.

It’s bad news, either way, because he has now been alerted. This may be enough to make him turn his back on you and move away but if he doesn’t, if he keeps looking at you, keep cool.

Remember that he will be looking at the camera head on, and from this perspective all he can see is the front of the lens, he can’t see the body part of it. And as he can’t see the body of the lens, the chances are that he doesn’t know if it’s a standard lens or a zoom lens.
If he decides that it’s a standard lens it might be ok, he might decide that you’re harmless.

Or he might tell himself that he doesn’t care what kind of lens it is, you aren’t going to take his picture, period. He might decide to confront you about it, to walk over to you and find out what the hell you’re doing.
Keep calm, but also decide what you’re going to do - and do it quickly.
Basically you have three options.

One option is let him walk right up to you, let him demand to know what you’re doing, admit that you were taking his picture and offer to delete the pictures. This may not be good enough for him, of course - he may decide to trash your camera and perhaps trash you too.
Another option is to stand up to him; tell him you were taking his picture and ask him what he plans to do about it.

A third option is to take his picture as he is walking towards you, to forget how scared you are and keep pressing that shutter. Then, when you’re sure you have some good pictures of him…
Run like hell!

* There are also important ethical issues involved in this kind of photography and I plan to discuss these in a future article.

Paul Gooch is a Press and wedding photographer located in Skegness UK. He sells his photographs to local, regional and national newspapers, has taught media studies at a local college and has published several thought provoking and perhaps controversial articles about photography on his web site http://www.paulgoochimages.com

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Scanning paper photo prints is rare but sometimes you will need to do just that. Scanning is a process in which paper photo prints are converted to digital photo files. There are a few things to know and a few tips to follow when scanning such paper photo prints. This article lists the important ones.

There are three types of photo prints that you can scan:

Paper photo prints: The most common, usually in sizes of 4X6 and 5X7. Photo paper prints are easy to scan. You can scan them yourself at home using a home scanner. Home scanners that can do the job are relatively cheap and usually cost less than $100. You can mail them or hand them in person to a professional service that will scan them for you. After they are scanned the service will mail you back the originals and a DVD with the digital photo files - alternatively the service can provide you with online access to the digital photos (examples are services such as www.digmypics.com, www.digitalpickle.com, www.britepix.com and many more) There are advantages and disadvantages to home scanning or professional scanning services. If you have a small number of photos scanning at home is easier. If you have plenty of photos using a service can be easier but it can be more expensive. If you decide to scan at home you should pay attention to:

Negatives: Negatives are also known as film. Negatives are developed film usually in 35mm format from which paper photo prints are printed. Scanning negatives is harder than scanning paper photo prints. In most cases it is easier and also cheaper to use a professional negative scanning service (example are services such as www.slidescanning.com, www.myspecialphotos.com, www.pixmonix.com and many more). Standard home flat scanners are not good enough for negative scanning and you will need to spend money and purchase a special film/slides scanner. Negatives are small high resolution sources and thus require scanning at higher DPI than paper prints. In most cases 2400DPI or higher should be used. Negatives also need to be lit in a special way when they are scanned. Flat home paper scanners project light on the paper from the front and then scan by capturing the reflected light. Negatives on the other hand need to be lit from the back and scanning is done by capturing the light the goes through
the negative.

Slides: very similar to negatives used for projecting photos on large screens. The same considerations and tips for negatives scanning also apply to slides.

Ziv Haparnas is a technology veteran and writes about practical technology and science issues. This article can be reprinted and used as long as the resource box including the backlink is included. You can find more information about photo album printing and photography in general on http://www.printrates.com - a site dedicated to photo printing.

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