Hi all,
I've been lurking on this list for a while and have learned a
tremendous amount from all of you, so I thought it was time I
introduced myself. And I actually have a question, it's down a few
paragraphs, after the asterisks.
I started photographing stuff when I was a kid, with a Kiev 4, which I
still have (currently being tuned up by Mike Fourman). Don't have any
of those pictures - they stayed behind in Poland (with just about
everything else) when my family left.
I do have some of the Kiev pics somewhere from my photography class in
high school. A year or two later I got an OM-2 as a gift and had a lot
of fun with it. I used to develop my own film and make my own prints
while I was in college, but after that I did't have access to a
darkroom until years later, when I was too busy to take advantage of
it, or even to take pictures other than snapshots with a
point-and-shoot.
I didn't get interested in photography again (at least doing my own)
until I got a (gasp!) digital camera (Sony 707) a couple of years ago.
I got it to take pictures of my patients. I am a geneticist and when
you are seeing a child with anomalies, it's a lot easier to take a
picture than to describe everything. "A picture says a thousand
words," and you can show it to colleagues, as well. Digital is easier
for this because you can label the pictures the same day, before you
forget who the kid was (I was never good at keeping records long
enough for the film to get developed and I just hate Polaroids).
Anyway, it turned out that I had a lot of fun with the digital, so I
started to take pictures of everything again. But what I really wanted
to do was macro photography and wildlife photography and even though I
have taken some really cool pictures with my digital, I wanted to get
beyond the limitation of the fixed lens.
I won't bore you with my thinking process, but I decided to resurrect
the OM-2 and am now acquiring additional lenses and other stuff. I'm
getting the film developed by a lab. Eventually, I plan to scan the
slides or negatives to digital format and print them digitally.
************************
Anyway, let me get to the question. It's about lighting and exposure
for close-up pictures of palm ridges, scars and other skin features.
And not with the OM-2 but with my digital. I hope one of you
experienced photographers can give me some advice on it.
I continue using the digital for clinic, since nothing beats it for
convenience. Not infrequently, I want to take a picture of the
patient's palm creases, a scar or some unusual skin pattern. I have
already learned to do this without flash because it burns out picture.
But I'm still not happy with the way the pictures are turning out
(aside from the fact that it can get to be hard to handhold the camera
at the low shutter speeds, and I do not want to bring a tripod or even
a monopod to clinic). Would it help to underexpose the photograph or
use some special lighting technique to get the patterns to show up
better? Any manipulations I can do in Photoshop to accomplish this?
Thanks for any advice,
--
Magda Plewinska
Miami, Florida, USA
email to MPlewinska at mindspring dot com
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