Photographic Record Keeping by Jean Charing Photographic record keeping can be both a pleasure and a chore, but even when it is a chore it is well worth the time spent on doing it, and with today's cameras, it does not have to be an expensive process or exceedingly labourious. I have switched to digital, but most of the suggestions I will make about taking pictures are applicable to both of the traditional media, slides and prints, as well as digital. What you need to start are the following: camera, plain background (blank wall, cloth or board), a cloudy day or a large garden umbrella for outdoor shots, two lights for indoor shoots. If you are using a digital camera, another useful item to consider is a card reader for the type of memory that your camera uses. This will plug into a USB port on your computer and you can take your memory card in and out of it without worrying about wasting camera battery power and the card appears as a drive letter (generally D:, E: or F:) on your computer. If you're running ME or a later operating system, your computer should find the card reader automatically. On older operating systems you will need an installation disk with drivers, but once installed it works as with newer operating systems. I use a 2.1 megapixel Canon Elf, but any good quality 2.1 megapixel camera will give you good quality 8 x 10 prints and images that will look good on a 21 inch monitor. If you don't own a digital camera and are thinking of buying one, I would suggest that you buy a name brand with a good lens and lower resolution, rather than go for the camera with highest resolution and a lens of unknown quality. My only regret, is that my camera has only 3x optical magnification. Do not confuse optical magnification with digital magnification which, chances are, you will never use. For bonsai record shots, I must admit I love digital. You have instant gratification and you can take as many shots as you like without incurring any extra costs. Outdoor Bonsai Photography What you need is cloudy day ... just enough cloud to prevent shadows. You can also create your own shade by using an umbrella or awning. You need a table or stand on which to sit your bonsai and an unadorned backdrop. This can be a plain sheet, tablecloth or a length of fabric or a plain wall of the house or garage. You can also buy a bristol board layout that is sold by stores like Grand & Toy or Staples, for student projects. These boards are folded into three panels and are designed to be self standing in non windy conditions. If you have a fence, drape your cloth from it, use clothes pegs or clamps to hold it in place and place your table in front of it. It is nicer if your cloth is large enough to also cover the table, so all your background is the same colour and your tree is the only focal point. What colour should your cloth be? If you are only going to invest in one, I would choose black velour. It doesn't show the wrinkles and most trees look great on the black background. Another advantage of black, it doesn't show dirt marks so readily. If you choose a white cloth, it must be ironed and wrinkle free. The camera will really show the wrinkles and if you happen to get that extra super stunning photo of your tree, you don't want wrinkles ruining it. Also, if you choose black as opposed to white, shadows will not be as obvious and detract from the tree. When you print in black and white, any shadows created by your light source will be less noticeable. On a white background, the shadows will be parallel to the tree trunk and branches - what is tree and what is shadow? Indoor Bonsai Photography This is more difficult, but often it is needed, especially if you have tropical bonsai. I use a table in front of my fridge and use magnets to hold the cloth in place ( a couple of super magnets from Lee Valley work great. I clamp my lights on the back of the kitchen chairs and aim the light at the cloth from a broad angle so the light does not hit the tree. The idea is for the light from the side lights to obscure the shadows created by the flash. Try to make sure that your cloth is flat. Folds and creases will create their own shadows. Alternatively just use your fridge if it is white or use a white wall. The flash should light the tree, not the your side lights and here is where the optical zoom comes in. Use your zoom and stand farther back from your tree. This will reduce the 'wash out' effect that the flash can create when it goes off too close to an object. Remember, you want to fill the screen with your tree. If you choose to have a white background, you may find that your flash will not fire. You can overcome this if your camera has a two step shutter. Aim your camera at an object that is the same distance from the camera as your tree, but out of the path of the lights, and depress the shutter to set the focus and the flash, then without releasing the pressure turn and take the picture of the tree by continuing to depress the shutter the full amount. Record Shots: Uses and Importance Record shots are not only useful for design work, but are also nice to record a history of the development of your trees. Pictures of what you did or didn't do to a certain tree and when you did it and how it responded, will assist you with decisions that you will make for other trees. For record shots, it can be especially useful to put a marker in the pot to designate what you think will be the front and take pictures from all sides. More pictures are better when you are in the thinking stage and the camera often sees things that you don't. And, while your trees are sleeping away the winter, you can try some on screen styling or designing of your trees with all your digital photos. Besides it is as good a time as any to learn what your photo editor can do. Important: If you are going to play with your pictures, always use a copy. Never alter an original. If you do by chance start to alter an original, use the file pull down menu and use the save as command and give the image a new name. Most cameras only save pictures in the JPG format and after several alterations and saves, you will find that you image gets degraded. This is because every time you save an image as a JPG, the image is re-sampled, so you end up with fewer pixels or dots of colour and therefore, a poorer quality image. Now that you have all these photos, you may want to think about a photo editor and photo database program. I use ACDSee as my photo editor, and prefer it to Photoshop. It is simpler to use and does all that I want it to do 99.9% of the time, and if you have to purchase an editor, it is much cheaper than Photoshop. Chances are a 'lite' version of a photo editor came with your digital camera AND chances are it will do 90% of everything you will ever want to do with your images. You may already have a database for your trees. If it happens to be based on or in Microsoft Access or if you can export tables in either a db2 or mdb format, then I would recommend a program called CyPics which uses an MS Access engine. (Each of these programs are under $55 Cdn). CyPics allows you to relate hundreds of images of a tree to one tree record which can hold such things as botanical name, common name, date of purchase or source, potting and pruning data with dates. If you are comfortable with working in a database such as Access, you can work with the tables created by CyPics directly in Access and import your tables from your old data base or link them to the CyPics database which is how I get a lot of my information to show under each picture by using the power of the Access update query. If you have never used an update query, BACK UP your database before trying one. I am sure there are other programs out there, but since I owned Microsoft Access, CyPics was a good choice for me. If you have taken your pictures with a 35 mm camera, either with print or slide film, you will have to scan them to take advantage of the power of computer editing, design, etc. Today you can purchase a scanner that will scan prints for less than a $100, but to purchase a scanner that will scan slides will set you back at least five times that or more. Storing and Retrieving Your Photos Like a collection of anything, storage and retrieval is an essential part of any collection. If you thought you took a lot of pictures with your SLR camera, you will find that with a digital camera, the number of photos will increase at least tenfold. Unlike a scanned slide or photo, the digital image from a digital camera will come with a host of information, generally referred to as metadata. Metadata will include date, time, camera settings, etc. This means, you have a record of the settings that worked for you. It also means you can search for pictures taken on a certain date or between certain dates and for this basic sorting you do not need any expensive software. Like a collection of slides or photos, digital pictures also require storage space. Today, the cost of computer storage space has come way down in price. You can add a second hard drive (120 gigabyte drive for $90) to your computer and CD's are now $0.29 each if you buy them by the hundred and a CD - R/W drive if your computer doesn't already have one, can be purchased for under $50. These costs are not unfavourable when compared to the cost of buying slide binders and storage sheets. Hope this gives you some ideas and that you will take loads of photos of your trees. Outdoor with background cloth of a light coloured bath towel taken on a cloudy day. Note how the tree stands out against the background and that there are no shadows. Also note how the creases and wrinkles in the towel show. Outdoors with no background cloth taken on a cloudy day. Note how the tree blends into the background. Indoor shot using white unironed background cloth. Lights aimed behind the tree. Note lack of shadow. Indoor shot using flash only. Note the shadows from the flash. Indoor shot with black background using side lights and flash. Even though side lights are not back far enough, shadow from flash is minimal due to both lights and colour of cloth. Indoor with flash and lights, but not using zoom. Note how the shadow is increased and also bark detail is washed out. Set up for indoor shots. Side lamps clamped to chairs, cloth is held by magnetic clips to fridge.