Beginner Test Shots Better Than What You Had Planned?

[Sony Corleone]

I had something funny happen today, and I wonder if anyone else here can relate.

I wanted to do a casual outdoor family shoot, but I don't know all that much about what I'm doing, so I went outside and prepared an area where we could stand for photos. The idea was to use a remote and stand behind a fence with the baby sitting on the fence. I found an area where I liked the lighting, and I cut away all the weeds there. I wanted to see if I could get acceptable background blurring, and I was concerned about the colors, because things are pretty brown here right now.

Got my wife to go outside with the baby to see how well the equipment and location would perform. We didn't put him in a special outfit. She left her jewelry in the house. Didn't bother with makeup.

It took her too long to get ready, and the sun moved, so we had to use an area where there were still weeds. I didn't think it mattered, since I thought I would delete the photos. I just pointed and shot, basically. Left the tripod in the house.

Then we ended up with a shot too good not to keep. If I had seen it coming, I would have worked harder on making him sharp.

So now I'm wondering if I will be able to match it when we're all dressed up.

 

[xwindows]

In my current streetlight photography project, which I stroll through my hometown streets at night and take snapshots of scenes lit under old-school streetlights as many as I could: every so often, I would take photograph of street/intersection/cannal/bus-stop signs as "checkpoints" for me to later help pinpoint in my journal about which photos shot where.

When taking these checkpoints photographs, I would set the camera to shoot at lowest resolution (6 MP in Sony Alpha-65 I'm using) and save at lowest JPEG quality available to save space; and I won't care much about precisely focusing as long as text in the sign could be read, because I would delete these checkpoint photos as soon as the details were typed into the journal.

However at one intersection, when I was trying to take a checkpoint shot of a certain street sign-- with the quality setting already dialed down and everything. I aimed, focused at the sign; and as I was about to press the shutter, I spotted this tree in the background appearing in the LCD, which coincidentally aligned with a streetlamp beyond, in a way that looked vaguely like a sun coursing through the cloudy sky...

It looked just too good to be a disposable checkpoint photograph; so I decided not to press the shutter, went back to a menu and fiddled the quality back up to the setting I normally use in the project, then aimed again. Since I have been using prime lens, I had to change standing position and aiming posture few times to make sure that the sign was also fully caught in the picture in the least-awkward way (I still need a checkpoint, you know), while focusing on the tree behind instead of the sign itself this time.

This is the resulting shot:

https://xwindows.in.th/temp/2026-02-20/

So not exactly like your case, because I managed to change this one into a real shot in the last minute; but I think I should share this anyway.

 

[ancient_mariner]

This is the resulting shot:

Any reason for not embedding the image, rather than taking us off-site to view it? Embedding makes forum use much more pleasant.

 

[Sangoma]

Any reason for not embedding the image, rather than taking us off-site to view it? Embedding makes forum use much more pleasant.

I didn't even look at it, looked like a scam site with the odd question to enter, no thanks!

 

[benc98]

Any reason for not embedding the image, rather than taking us off-site to view it? Embedding makes forum use much more pleasant.

Never in a million years am I clicking the button on that website

 

[Phil V]

Hi @Sony Corleone
You’re right in that you’ve caught a decent shot.

However, if you really want to learn, you’re missing the big trick here.

When we scout a location for a portrait, what we’re looking for is a pleasant background (you got that) in good light.

Dappled shade, as you’ve found here will give you the same headaches you had with the banding from your home lights.

The big penny drop moment for any photographer is when they learn to ‘see’ the light. Our eyes are amazing, but they work by filling in loads of information that the camera can’t record (because it’s in our brains).

So when you’re looking at that scene, you see your cute kid and beautiful wife. However the camera sensor is only recording the light reflected off a subject. And it sees a cute kid in mixed light where the bottom half of the face is in the light, and the top half is in shade, your wife is also being broad lit, where if she was at the other side of your son she’d be short lit. Which is much more pleasing.

To avoid these issues, the easy way out is to find a nice background in open shade. If you don’t want ‘easy’ though and you want something better, I’d recommend you do a studio lighting course.

It sounds mad, but I think all people photographers should learn how to work in a completely controlled environment, then they will learn to find the light where it occurs naturally. It is the quickest way to learn to ‘see’ the light.

It seems obvious when you know but newbies don’t get this simple concept:

Photography is a 2d medium, but you’re recording 3d objects. Light isn’t for simply recording an exposure. Light creates shadows, and shadows create the depth in the 2d image. Therefore, control of the shadows is what makes the successful image.

 

[xwindows]

Any reason for not embedding the image, rather than taking us off-site to view it?

Because if any lesson was to be learned from my 2 years of live-monitoring my website's traffic and do real-time battling with unwanted bots, it is that I effectively cannot bar Artificial Idiot scrapers if I hot-link resources like image off-site; so I will not do that. (0)

(Rant start)

For the button, I refuse to use those zero-click interstitials "solutions" which run drive-by programs resembling crypto-miner (e.g. Anubis) or execute espionage functions on visitors' browser (e.g. CloudFaire, Google reCAPTCHA); which are even much more abusive, and nearly always fail to work under my setup.

This specific anti-scraper interstitials I wrote is mere plain HTML <form> submission, with absolutely no JavaScript, WASM, or other active code run on the browser side (pressing Ctrl+U will tell you as much). Unlike those abusive things I mentioned earlier, even ones who use the most strict browser security setting possible (like me) that unconditionally kills off all executable content on the page, such people can still get through this, precisely because it does not use any of such harm-ridden functions.

The only catch is such interstitial cannot be automatic (1), thus the button.

Granted, my design of the page should have been improved to not look like a bland Apache 401 error page; which I will get to that in due time. But the riddle's wording is intentional, to mislead automatic attempt to interpret by anything like LLM that can't discern form of the words vs. actual real-world implied meaning of the phrase.

It is ironic that people fail to recognize site design that actually respect their rights, merely because it "looks funky" or "outdated" on the surface; then the same people nonchalantly proceed to sites full of malicious scripts which milk their personal data dry, do episonage on every of their touch/mouse movement and keystrokes, then play them like pigeon in Skinner's box (like Facebook, X, YouTube, and Flickr, and many more) because "it looks modern", "familiar", or "everybody uses it".

Use protection (2) when surfing the Internet, rather than merely spotting "lip service" presentation or visual "virtue signaling" of sites pretending to protect you.

If people don't want to view the photo because of this; fine, it's their choice; though this does show the utter failure of digital literacy education of the society at large in general. That's the part I can't fix.

(Rant end)

---

P.S. For any technically-able people reading this, who would like to see more of this style of user-respecting institial design, you would want to visit cheapskatesguide.org and bluedwarf.top . My website's intersititals is a actually copycat of ones used on these sites; I merely did away with the question and instructed viewer to plainly click the submit button (seen as "Knock! Knock! Knock!" in my version), which is what I think to be a much-easier to do than fiddling with virtual keyboard on mobile to type in the numeric answer.

(0) And I will not use attachment function either; that one is even worse: because the rights-granting clause in the forum's term of services that is going way too far for what I'd like for my photographs. (Like continued granting of rights even if I removed my account)

(1) Before anyone start arguing about `<meta http-equiv="Refresh">` here: I will say that the fact that Invidious site (YouTube front end) inv.nadeko.net having to switch away from it after using this for a long time, is a testimony that this simple anti-scraping method no longer work in the age where headless browsers were deployed as more-than-insignificant part of such venture.

(2) Disable JavaScript and WebAssembly in your browser. If you found any site which fail to work with this setting or tried to coerce you to turn it back on, you now know who's actually a foe who're sabotaging your actual security. (Hints: all websites I mentioned by name in this post before the P.S. will fail. This forum however, does work; and so do my personal website that few people tried to libel as "scammy" here)

 

[LeeRatters]

Because if any lesson was to be learned from my 2 years of live-monitoring my website's traffic and do real-time battling with unwanted bots, it is that I effectively cannot bar Artificial Idiot scrapers if I hot-link resources like image off-site; so I will not do that. (0)

(Rant start)

For the button, I refuse to use those zero-click interstitials "solutions" which run drive-by programs resembling crypto-miner (e.g. Anubis) or execute espionage functions on visitors' browser (e.g. CloudFaire, Google reCAPTCHA); which is even much more abusive, and nearly always fail to work under my setup.

This specific anti-scraper interstitials I wrote is mere plain HTML <form> submission, with absolutely no JavaScript, WASM, or other active code run on the browser side (pressing Ctrl+U will tell you as much). Unlike those abusive things I mentioned earlier, even ones who use the most strict browser security setting possible (like me) that unconditionally kills off all executable content on the page, such people can still get through this one, precisely because it does not use any of such harm-ridden functions.

The only catch is such interstitial cannot be automatic (1), thus the button.

Granted, my design of the page should have been improved to not look like a bland Apache 401 error page; which I will get to that in due time. But the riddle's wording is intentional, to mislead automatic attempt to interpret by anything like LLM that can't discern form of the words vs. actual real-world implied meaning of the phrase.

It is ironic that people fail to recognize site design that actually respect their rights, merely because it "looks funky" or "outdated" on the surface; then the same people nonchalantly proceed to sites full of malicious scripts which milk their personal data dry, do episonage on every of their touch movement, and play them like pigeon in Skinner's box (like Facebook, X, YouTube, and Flickr, and many more) because "it looks modern", "familar", or "everybody uses it".

Use protection (2) when surfing the Internet, rather than merely spotting "lip service" presentation of sites pretending to protect you.

If people don't want to view the photo because of this; fine, it's their choice; though this does show the utter failure of digital literacy education of the society at large.

(Rant end)

---

P.S. For any technically-able people reading this, who would like to see more of this style of user-respecting institial design, you would want to visit cheapskatesguide.org and bluedwarf.top . My website's intersititals is a actually copycat of ones used on these sites; I merely did away with the question and instructed viewer to plainly click the submit button (seen as "Knock! Knock! Knock!" in my version), which is what I think to be a much-easier to do than fiddling with virtual keyboard on mobile to type in the numberic answer.

(0) And I will not use attachment function either, as that one have even worse; because the rights-granting clause in the forum's term of services that is way going too far for what I'd like for my photographs. (Like continued granting of rights even if I removed my account)

(1) Before anyone start arguing about `<meta http-equiv="Refresh">` here: I will say that the fact that Invidious site (YouTube front end) inv.nadeko.net having to switch away from it after using this for a long time, is a testimony that this simple anti-scraping method no longer work in the age where headless browsers were deployed as more-than-insignificant part of such venture.

(2) Disable JavaScript and WebAssembly in your browser. If you found any site which fail to work with this setting or tried to coerce you to turn it back on, you now know who's actually a foe who're sabotaging your actual security. (Hints: all websites I mentioned by name in this post before the P.S. will fail. This forum however, does work; and so do my personal website that few people tried to libel as "scammy" here)

TL : DR

 

[Sangoma]

Because if any lesson was to be learned from my 2 years of live-monitoring my website's traffic and do real-time battling with unwanted bots, it is that I effectively cannot bar Artificial Idiot scrapers if I hot-link resources like image off-site; so I will not do that. (0)

(Rant start)

For the button, I refuse to use those zero-click interstitials "solutions" which run drive-by programs resembling crypto-miner (e.g. Anubis) or execute espionage functions on visitors' browser (e.g. CloudFaire, Google reCAPTCHA); which are even much more abusive, and nearly always fail to work under my setup.

This specific anti-scraper interstitials I wrote is mere plain HTML <form> submission, with absolutely no JavaScript, WASM, or other active code run on the browser side (pressing Ctrl+U will tell you as much). Unlike those abusive things I mentioned earlier, even ones who use the most strict browser security setting possible (like me) that unconditionally kills off all executable content on the page, such people can still get through this, precisely because it does not use any of such harm-ridden functions.

The only catch is such interstitial cannot be automatic (1), thus the button.

Granted, my design of the page should have been improved to not look like a bland Apache 401 error page; which I will get to that in due time. But the riddle's wording is intentional, to mislead automatic attempt to interpret by anything like LLM that can't discern form of the words vs. actual real-world implied meaning of the phrase.

It is ironic that people fail to recognize site design that actually respect their rights, merely because it "looks funky" or "outdated" on the surface; then the same people nonchalantly proceed to sites full of malicious scripts which milk their personal data dry, do episonage on every of their touch/mouse movement and keystrokes, then play them like pigeon in Skinner's box (like Facebook, X, YouTube, and Flickr, and many more) because "it looks modern", "familiar", or "everybody uses it".

Use protection (2) when surfing the Internet, rather than merely spotting "lip service" presentation or visual "virtue signaling" of sites pretending to protect you.

If people don't want to view the photo because of this; fine, it's their choice; though this does show the utter failure of digital literacy education of the society at large in general. That's the part I can't fix.

(Rant end)

---

P.S. For any technically-able people reading this, who would like to see more of this style of user-respecting institial design, you would want to visit cheapskatesguide.org and bluedwarf.top . My website's intersititals is a actually copycat of ones used on these sites; I merely did away with the question and instructed viewer to plainly click the submit button (seen as "Knock! Knock! Knock!" in my version), which is what I think to be a much-easier to do than fiddling with virtual keyboard on mobile to type in the numeric answer.

(0) And I will not use attachment function either; that one is even worse: because the rights-granting clause in the forum's term of services that is going way too far for what I'd like for my photographs. (Like continued granting of rights even if I removed my account)

(1) Before anyone start arguing about `<meta http-equiv="Refresh">` here: I will say that the fact that Invidious site (YouTube front end) inv.nadeko.net having to switch away from it after using this for a long time, is a testimony that this simple anti-scraping method no longer work in the age where headless browsers were deployed as more-than-insignificant part of such venture.

(2) Disable JavaScript and WebAssembly in your browser. If you found any site which fail to work with this setting or tried to coerce you to turn it back on, you now know who's actually a foe who're sabotaging your actual security. (Hints: all websites I mentioned by name in this post before the P.S. will fail. This forum however, does work; and so do my personal website that few people tried to libel as "scammy" here)

 

[lindsay]

Because if any lesson was to be learned from my 2 years of live-monitoring my website's traffic and do real-time battling with unwanted bots, it is that I effectively cannot bar Artificial Idiot scrapers if I hot-link resources like image off-site; so I will not do that. (0)

(Rant start)

For the button, I refuse to use those zero-click interstitials "solutions" which run drive-by programs resembling crypto-miner (e.g. Anubis) or execute espionage functions on visitors' browser (e.g. CloudFaire, Google reCAPTCHA); which are even much more abusive, and nearly always fail to work under my setup.

This specific anti-scraper interstitials I wrote is mere plain HTML <form> submission, with absolutely no JavaScript, WASM, or other active code run on the browser side (pressing Ctrl+U will tell you as much). Unlike those abusive things I mentioned earlier, even ones who use the most strict browser security setting possible (like me) that unconditionally kills off all executable content on the page, such people can still get through this, precisely because it does not use any of such harm-ridden functions.

The only catch is such interstitial cannot be automatic (1), thus the button.

Granted, my design of the page should have been improved to not look like a bland Apache 401 error page; which I will get to that in due time. But the riddle's wording is intentional, to mislead automatic attempt to interpret by anything like LLM that can't discern form of the words vs. actual real-world implied meaning of the phrase.

It is ironic that people fail to recognize site design that actually respect their rights, merely because it "looks funky" or "outdated" on the surface; then the same people nonchalantly proceed to sites full of malicious scripts which milk their personal data dry, do episonage on every of their touch/mouse movement and keystrokes, then play them like pigeon in Skinner's box (like Facebook, X, YouTube, and Flickr, and many more) because "it looks modern", "familiar", or "everybody uses it".

Use protection (2) when surfing the Internet, rather than merely spotting "lip service" presentation or visual "virtue signaling" of sites pretending to protect you.

If people don't want to view the photo because of this; fine, it's their choice; though this does show the utter failure of digital literacy education of the society at large in general. That's the part I can't fix.

(Rant end)

---

P.S. For any technically-able people reading this, who would like to see more of this style of user-respecting institial design, you would want to visit cheapskatesguide.org and bluedwarf.top . My website's intersititals is a actually copycat of ones used on these sites; I merely did away with the question and instructed viewer to plainly click the submit button (seen as "Knock! Knock! Knock!" in my version), which is what I think to be a much-easier to do than fiddling with virtual keyboard on mobile to type in the numeric answer.

(0) And I will not use attachment function either; that one is even worse: because the rights-granting clause in the forum's term of services that is going way too far for what I'd like for my photographs. (Like continued granting of rights even if I removed my account)

(1) Before anyone start arguing about `<meta http-equiv="Refresh">` here: I will say that the fact that Invidious site (YouTube front end) inv.nadeko.net having to switch away from it after using this for a long time, is a testimony that this simple anti-scraping method no longer work in the age where headless browsers were deployed as more-than-insignificant part of such venture.

(2) Disable JavaScript and WebAssembly in your browser. If you found any site which fail to work with this setting or tried to coerce you to turn it back on, you now know who's actually a foe who're sabotaging your actual security. (Hints: all websites I mentioned by name in this post before the P.S. will fail. This forum however, does work; and so do my personal website that few people tried to libel as "scammy" here)

I think this rant could have quite simply been summarised by "Because I don't want to do it your way". No need for all that supercilious pseudo tech babble.

Reflecting on this, and your message to the staff about the site access constraints, you may want to review whether you want to engage on the site as a photographer, or merely as a technophile. [I've deleted the rest of my personal thoughts in this]

Now, please let us get back to the subject of the thread.