“Aha!” Moments

Mar

2013

Sketches: Applying the Lesson

Last week posted here were a series of images playing with shadows, darkness, and a creative vision with the camera that did not include respecting the in-camera metering system. It seems some of you liked it. I certainly have been enjoying making these images. They were all made with the Nikon D80, a camera that has a limited sensor while still remaining manually customizable. I enjoyed pushing myself within the limits of poor high-iso performance and a single lens.

Then, through the generosity of some incredible people, I came to be the user of a new camera – one with much higher ISO capabilities and manually customizable settings

At first I wondered if the camera might change my approach. But then I decided I didn’t want it to.

What I wanted to do was exploit this new camera’s capabilities while still forcing it to do my bidding.

Essentially using the tool to create what I wanted and not letting the tool dictate the image to me.

I’m happy with the results so far. What do you think?

Mar

2013

Sketches: Lookout-Your Pictures Are Getting Dark

I guess my wife is paying attention. The title above is something she said to me recently. I guess she noticed.

I have been playing with tones recently. I started last year as I decided to take a step backward regarding gear and emulate some of the old-school photographers working with what would today be considered outrageous restrictions – Kodachrome at ISO 50, in a darkened room, or at the edges of the day, without a tripod, or a monopod.

Think about it, these photogs shot with stuff you and I spend lots of money to get away from, and they made iconic photographs.

Damn, they were (or are) good.

So I grabbed my D80 and one lens last fall and committed to it. As others upped their sensor size and crazy-high-iso-capability-I-can-shoot-in-the-dark cameras I went the other way (story of my life, my parents tell me.) I grabbed a camera with an ISO rating that shouldn’t be legally rated above 400 and went at it. Man that was hard.

It was hard because out of the camera my files were not going to compare in quality to what others were shooting. Because I was going to miss and flub a lot of shots – and I did.

But I learned something. Those limits pushed me to look, to search, to seek, to struggle around the edges of things, and to learn to trust my eye and my brain rather than the light meter in camera. I don’t think I shot anything “properly exposed” according to the camera. It was a lot of “half a stop over” or “1.3 stops under” or even “3 stops under” My images began to look like what I wanted them to look, not what the scene actually looked like in front of me.

And that is when I started creating images. Took me some years to get here.

And now maybe a new camera….

Dec

2012

A Limited Commodity

I was observing myself the other day. I was observing what I was feeling and what I was thinking, specifically about photography. And in this time of gift giving and gift receiving I was thinking about all the many things I would love to receive as a gift. Lately I’ve been wanting a digital rangefinder camera along the likes of a Fuji x100 or Fuji XPro-1 as many of my friends have switched to from larger dSLR bodies.

I began to notice all the justifications in my brain about what I could do with these new, smaller, quieter camera bodies and their fantastic lenses and lack of AA filter. And I noticed that I thought – well, actually believed – that my photography would improve if I had one of those cameras. That my pictures would be better. That more people would see and like my work. That my website would get more traffic. That I would receive more praise. That I would like my pictures more. That I could move about more freely with these smaller cameras.

And some of that might be true. But, you know, really I need more time.

I need time to work on projects. I need time to follow ideas through. I need time to process and organize and make books and upload and, and, and.

And I need time to spend with my wife and kids. And time to play. And time to read. And time to settle into my skin. And time to work.

And I began to realize that I need time. And if I need time, then that is what I need most.

And as I steadfastly approach my mid century of life I look back and realize it has all gone so fast so far. And while my best years might still be yet to come, I believe I have fewer of them. I look at my parents, my siblings, my friends, and I see the unmistakable marks of age and experience on their bodies and this mirrors back to me to be aware and present to that most precious and finite of commodities.

Time.

We have all we have, I suppose. And we have plenty of it, for now. (I’m certain I will argue that point in the end.)

But here it is: new camera? Or time?

A new camera won’t improve my photography, my way of seeing, my way of telling a story. But, if I apply what time there is well, I just might. Just me, awareness, and time.

May

2012

It’s not for me to know…

“It’s not for me to know; it’s for me to find out (discover).” This thought is what came to me as I browsed through some William Albert Allard images on the National Geographic site online. Allard, a 50 year contributor to the Geographic, is known for his incredible use of color as a compositional tool as well as his intimate stories in light other photographers wouldn’t choose to use.

What struck me as I looked at his images is how close he gets to his subjects. I’m not talking about positional distance, although he does that too. I mean how intimate the images become. It is as if he captures that essence of a moment that shows the subjects in all their three dimensional human depth. It is as if he manages to make an image from inside the subject’s defenses, from beyond the mask.

And even more, what Allard manages to capture in these images is not only the subject, but a piece of himself. And in doing so he captures a piece of me. Repeatedly I’ve found myself looking at an image thinking, “I know that feeling!” There is a piece of me in those images, and I imagine there is a piece of Allard, and of you too. That is good photography!

So why do I share all this? Well, I try to be better and better at photographing. I’m trying to learn what makes a good image and I’m trying to learn how to do it myself. A friend of mine suggested not too subtly that I not collect my own work but rather collect the good works of others. He suggested this mostly to spur along my artistic efforts, I know. And he has succeeded. So, I’ve been perusing the works of others including Allard, Steve McCurry, Larry Towell, Martin Parr, Yousuf Karsh and others. and I keep asking myself, “how did/do they do that?”

That question is not about the technical aspect of an image; I can figure that part out. It’s about the access; it’s about the edit; it’s about the moment; it’s about the intimacy; it’s about recognizing what matters out of all the uncontrollable chaos that exists in the world swirling around us all the time. And I realize, it is not for me to know by looking at others’ work; it is for me to discover – in the world, in front of my camera, in my images. These photographers managed to capture the images they did because they went seeking that intimacy. They let themselves become known and they let themselves discover others.

They got close, really close, and found that reflection of themselves in others and made an image of that. So, the question then arises, is how do I find that reflection of myself in my subjects, in the world? And show it?

Nov

2011

Fall in Love

Going to bed last night I had a thought. One of those “slap your palm against your forehead” kind of thoughts that resonate so deeply; that “Aha!” moment; that moment of sudden realization that students of Zen seek so stoically called Satori.

I had it, last night.

I didn’t write it down.

So I’m left here to attempt to reconstruct it. Bah! (The picture above is me frantically trying to reconstruct the thought stream right before writing this post.)

“Bah!” because I also know those Satori moments are moments beyond words, and a great way to know if someone has “got it” is that they are unable to explain what it is they “got”. It’s as if it is an intrinsic knowing-a feeling-not a thought. So to try to distill it down to a thought, a series of words, doesn’t seem to do it justice.

But here I go:

From what I have learned recently, artists view art as a verb. Consumers of art view art as a noun-a thing. To artists-those that make art- art is a verb. It is an action. It is the act of creation. And to be an artist means to be a creator-continually creating. (I didn’t come up with this on my own, mind you. I got it from Art and Fear, a great little book about artists their challenges.)

As such, for an artist to be artistic they need to focus on doing the work. Without the doing, without the act of creating and doing the work, the artist isn’t an artist. In fact, studies have shown that those that are the most prolific at creating art are also the ones that create the best art. Holding out until the right time to create the masterpiece doesn’t really work; creating lots of work births the masterpiece. That is how the process works.

But there is a challenge: the artist’s vision stays one step ahead of the artist’s skill and this can lead to a perpetual dissatisfaction with the work. After all, if you never quite have the skill to fully create what you envision, you won’t ever be truly satisfied. Many fall prey to this challenge and drop out of artistic endeavors. Best to focus on continually creating-Do the work.

It’s funny this thing called an artistic life: we get into it because we want to have done something creative we can be proud of-we imagine being proud of ourselves to have produced good work. It just doesn’t really work like that. We probably won’t be satisfied with it, despite any accolades we might receive from our peers or consumers of our art. So best to focus on the creating.

So then, the photograph doesn’t matter really. It is the act of photographing that matters and will, with enough work, create good photographs. But we’ll be dissatisfied, so best to keep photographing.

Do you see where this is going? Sure, we need to develop a critical eye, edit well, sequence well, expose well, pan well, choose depth of field well, process well, all that jazz. But we have to learn to love the act of creation; we have to love making photographs!!!

There are some that advocate forgetting about the gear and loving the photograph. That the primacy of photography is the photograph. I don’t disagree with them, but I’ve spent many an evening falling asleep wondering why people love their gear so much. And I am beginning to realize that the love of the gear is an integral part of the process. We have to love making photographs and loving the gear is part of that. If I hate my gear I am not going to make pictures, simple as that. But if I love my gear, if I am excited about it, well….that is another story.

So that is my attempt at reconstructing a thought that came to me during that in between space between wakeful reality and dream reality. What are your thoughts?

Oct

2011

“Aha!” Moment: On Using Manual Exposure Mode To Create Drama

Ever have one of those moments when a realization just hits you and you want to slap your forehead in one of those “NOW I get it!” moments? I just had one.

Ever have that feeling just moments after that “Aha Moment” where you feel a bit silly for taking so long to “get it?” I just had one of those too.

I guess part of the fun of photography is that there is so much to it that the learning just continues and continues. Sure we can get really frustrated during this lengthy process, but bored? No, not me. And hopefully not you either.

So, what did I learn? Well, I learned about the benefit of using manual exposure to create dramatic effect in images. It has been a long slow process getting to this point but I believe it is finally beginning to sink in, slowly.

Let me walk you through my process so that you follow what a significant, yet simple, realization this is. And also one that shifts a paradigm for me in terms of thinking about making, taking, creating images.

1) When I first started to explore photography seriously a friend suggested I shoot in Manual Mode, so I did. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Manual Mode it is the mode where the photographer makes all the exposure decisions in making the image. The photographer (me!) chooses the shutter speed and aperture. By contrast, the Full Auto mode of Program Auto, and the semi-auto modes of Shutter Speed Priority and Aperture Priority, allow the camera to make its bazzilion calculations to determine the “correct” exposure and then set the settings automatically to match that exposure. The problem with how I started using Manual Mode is that I depended 100% on the light meter reading in camera to determine exposure. Sure, I might increase or decrease the exposure by 1/3 of a stop for one reason or another, but mostly I was wildly spinning the dials to match the cameras idea of a “correct exposure.” It was fun and I felt all pro, but I missed a lot of shots because I was busing messing with the dials. So I began to wonder why I was using the camera this way.

2) So I switched to Aperture Priority. In this mode I chose the aperture and the camera did its bazillion calculations to determine “correct exposure” and then set the shutter speed automatically to achieve this exposure. Great. Now I was controlling some of the aesthetics of the image (namely depth of field-or the area that is in or out of focus). Sometimes I switched to Shutter Speed Priority where I chose the shutter speed and the camera did its bazillion calculations and set an aperture to create “correct exposure” but 95% of the time I shot Aperture Priority. Sure, sometimes I fiddled with Exposure Compensation but, you know, just 1/3 or 2/3 of a stop over or under exposed based on whether my subject was backlit or not.

3) Then one day I was shooting the Dia de los Muertos parade here in Albuquerque and the light was waning in the evening. Soon it was dark and so out came my flash. I popped it on the camera (gasp!), left the aperture right where it was (wide. open.) and set the flash on auto-through-the-lens-trust-me-I’m-Nikon-and-I-won’t-let-you-down, and tried to photograph a lovely person who had volunteered to be photographed. Kablooey!!! I nuked them into next week. My friend Marc, the camera whisperer, took pity on the poor soul in front of me and took the minute or two she was taking to regain her vision to help me out. “What are you set on?” he asked. “Oh, no, no, no. Set your camera to manual, f8, 1/250th. Start there and dial it in. Always set your camera to manual and start there or else the camera will try to make the black of the evening into middle grey and everything will be over-exposed.” “Oh.” I said. So I tried to burn that advice into my memory and it has helped. It’s not the only way to do things with the flash, I know, but it was a good learning for me. And I did finally end up with the image to the right.

4) Then this spring I had the opportunity to take Joe McNally and Dave Hobby‘s Flashbus Tour workshop and I was struck by the direction that Dave Hobby takes with his flash photography. His first bit of advice was 1) set your ambient exposure in manual and 2) layer your (strobe) light on top of that. “Hey, wait!” I thought, “there is that manual thing again.” What struck me most was that he often stops down the ambient light by 1 or 2 stops, leaving a little light in there, and then adds light with his strobes. And here was the key piece, he was not listening to what his camera is saying is a “correct exposure.” He does a quick peek at what the camera thinks is good, stops the exposure down 1-2 stops with his shutter speed, and then begins to add light with his strobes.

5) And slowly, slowly, slowly that awareness that we need to sometimes NOT listen to our camera’s idea of a “correct exposure” has begun to sink in. And I finally “got it” today when I saw this image by Gael Turine. Had the photographer not been shooting in Manual Mode and not chosen to “underexpose” the image (or had he followed a light meter’s direction on what is a “correct exposure”) then lots of what we see as black would have been exposed to make it look middle grey, and the lighter parts of the image would have been overexposed to the point of having no texture, making the image look completely different and less interesting.

And so there is my “Aha!” moment. Simple, but counter-intuitive if you’ve come to trust the light meter in camera to determine exposure. Time perhaps to throw most of that direction aside and play with stopping the exposure down or up. Time to start to play outside the limits of 1 stop over or under exposed and see what fun there is to have. (I actually wrote this article before I shot the images for my previous post on the Balloon Fiesta. All of the black and white nighttime images in that post were “underexposed” by about 2 stops.)

Note: the image at the top of my son daydreaming during his dinner was shot in natural light and I stopped the exposure down 2 full stops from what the TTL light meter told me was a “correct exposure.” Why not compare the two exposures below. The top image is stopped down 2 stops from what the camera’s light meter thinks is the “correct exposure” (bottom image).

Apr

2011

Travel Heavy, travel light

I can’t decide. Sometimes I resign myself to lugging all sorts of camera gear around: umbrellas, reflectors, tripods, lenses, camera bodies…all sorts of goodies. Other times I think that life is just made so much more complicated by so many choices and “needs” and I just want to simple things down. At times like these I wish I owned a Leica M9 or, more realistically, a Nikon P7000, or Canon G11, or Fuji X100; simple, streamlined, but high quality cameras.

So I’ve taken to trying different approaches. Last fall I shot the Muertos y Marigolds Day of the Dead parade here with a bag full of gear and two cameras-one with a zoom to get in on all the action, one with a wide angle in order to capture some cool images of the low-rider cars rolling through. This weekend, while running around town with my wife and two young children, I grabbed my small Crumpler bag containing my Nikon D80 and a 50mm f1.8 lens. One simple(r) camera body and one simple, non-zoom, lens.

Boy, the feeling of freedom that came with the simple setup was grand. Did I wish for other lenses or my D300? Sure. A time or two. But without having them I was able to move through the “shucks” faze and work with what I had: some yummy light, 3 subjects I just adore, a nice backdrop. And, as a serious bonus, since I was less focused on my gear I actually got to connect more with my wife and kids. The camera didn’t stand between me and them, but rather sort of disappeared as it became part of what we were all doing. And so now the images I created are visual reminders of a day well spent, rather than the focus of the day.

I wonder, could we manage to connect better with our subjects and have a more rewarding experience with them if we just chose to travel light at times? What would it be like to travel with my D80-50mm lens setup, say to Paris? Or to Thailand? Perhaps I would be limited, but would that limitation actually force me to see differently, to look more for scenes, subjects, backgrounds, light–yummy gorgeous light?

Mar

2011

Get on the Bus: The Flashbus, that is.

Recently I attended a traveling presentation called The Flashbus consisting of Dave Hobby of Strobist fame and Joe McNally of National Geographic fame, two of the foremost users and educators of small off-camera flash units (often called “strobes.”)

These two guys got the idea to travel the country, stopping in 29 cities in 6 weeks, and teach about small flashes from their two different, yet sometimes merging, philosophies on how to use these small lights with our cameras to create immensely powerful, stunning, and beautiful images. I was lucky enough to get the approval and support of my wife to attend the stopover in Albuquerque and boy am I glad I went.

As a quick, very quick, overview/review I can say that the event was high energy, fun, informative, enjoyable, and absolutely worth the $100 to attend. In fact, I felt I had received my money’s worth in the morning watching Dave Hobby teach how to create a scene through layering light. Such was the power of Dave’s approach, explanation, and examples that Joe McNally’s live demonstration of how he thinks through lighting a scene or portrait was icing one the cake. Dave Hobby (the strobist) taught us how to layer light into a scene and control all the lights manually while Joe McNally showed us how and when to trust the camera and flashes iTTL technology (and when not to!)

The most important piece of information I received from this workshop was from Dave in how to think through lighting a scene, especially a portrait. Thinking in terms of Ambient light, Fill light, Key light (main light), and Accent light, Dave created a paradigm in my brain regarding how to think through a shoot and build the image I would like to create. The image above is one I created several years ago of my niece and my son on a beach in Mexico at sunset. I had read about and seen numerous variations on this type of lighting and thought I had it figured out. Boy was I wrong. This shot was just lucky-a big hail Mary toss. Most of the others that evening look as if the subjects, those poor kids and others, were hit with nuclear radiation. Now, thanks to Dave and Joe, I have a better understanding of what I got right in this shot, and what I did wrong in others, and thereby took away some of the mystique of lighting a scene with multiple lights.

More importantly I now have faith that I can figure out how to light a scene. Before, I thought I might be able to do it but often got stuck. In essence, I didn’t know what I didn’t know and that made me nervous. Now I feel I have a foundation, I know I know some stuff, and I know lots of what I don’t know. I’ll figure a lot out through practice and I can’t wait to get going.

So a big thank you to Dave and Joe and all the folks involved in making The Flashbus happen. It was a great time and I am so glad I took advantage of this rare opportunity. Stay tuned for some more flash induced photographs!!

Jul

2010

The "Aha!" Moment: Learning Photography

I’m a passionately motivated person. When I find something I am interested in I throw myself into learning as much about the subject as possible. I know this to be true because it’s what my father has remarked about me, so it must be true.

At the same time I am often attempting to discover the root of what makes something good. In this case, what makes a good photograph? Given some parity regarding photographic equipment, what makes one professional photographer better than another? If it is not the quality of the equipment (given relative parity) what are the distinguishing aspects or characteristics that go into making a good photograph? Perhaps it is vision, and perhaps it is also the photographer’s skill at using the camera to depict something interesting.

This inquiry has led me to learn as much as I can about how the camera affects the image we are attempting to capture, and I’ve been learning, although slowly for my taste. Some of what I have learned is pretty basic and some is more complicated, but each thing I have learned has led to an “aha!” moment. I thought I might share some of them in posts on this blog, perhaps to create an “aha!” moment in you but more likely to make sure the lesson has really stuck in me (I’m following the old adage that if you really want to understand something, teach it.)

So today’s “aha!” moment relates to how short focal length lenses (ie: wide angle lenses) spread elements apart in the frame, and long focal length (ie: zoom) lenses compress elements. I’ve read about this often and while the examples given in books and on websites were clear enough, when in the field I could not remember which did which and just ended up confused. Then one day I decided to try an experiment and attempt to recreate one shot using both a short and long focal length lenses. This is what I found:

I took the top image with my lens set at 18mm, the widest it will go, and the image below at 135mm, the longest the same lens will go. And wow!! I now know how much zoom will affect the elements. In the second image the background hill and the clouds appear much closer and imposing, and much more important elements in the frame, creating a more dynamic image. And in the interests of transparency, the two images were taken less than a minute apart, so the clouds were in the same location. The second shot was taken from a slightly higher vantage point due to me having to back up a slight hill in order to keep the composition the same in both images.

So my “aha!” moment? Well, I learned that I can radically alter the compositional nature of the elements in the frame by choosing to shoot wide or telephoto. Now telephoto is no longer just used to “get in close” but instead I can use it more mindfully to create the kind of image I want to create. In this case it is a blending of my father-in-law’s ranch equipment against the stunning skies of southern New Mexico.

Thanks for reading. I hope to make this “Aha!” moment a regular feature on this blog. I would welcome any comments and would love to hear about your “Aha!” moments with photography or other creative endeavors.