black and white

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).

Sep

2011

Daily Practice

Submit to a daily practice. Keep knocking and the joy inside will eventually open a window. -Rumi

Things have been busy here in monkdom. I know many of us have busy lives; it is one of the things that tends to define us as Americans, it seems, and I notice it often as a casual yet telling response to a friendly greeting in my parts. “What you been up to?” the greeter asks. “Oh, not much. Busy, busy…”

Not many more details are given and none more are requested, as if to say “well, if you won’t volunteer it, or don’t remember it, then it’s not that important to me.”

Well, here, we’ve been busy, busy. And I’m gonna tell you about it, mostly because I’m enthused about it and also because all this business is separating the wheat from the chaff for me and the role of photography in my life.

The quote above is a quick little ditty that has deep meaning for those spiritually oriented, but it also speaks true of those of us in the quest for that satisfying artistic expression: our voice. “Submit to a daily practice and have faith” that quote seems to say. Work daily, practice daily, be mindful, daily and what you seek or what you need will somehow, somewhere, present itself.

It is a challenging thing to do because submitting to this daily practice is supposed to challenge you. It is supposed to make you question what you are doing and why you are doing it. It is supposed to take you right to the edge of the limits of what you know about your art (and even perhaps yourself) and make you peer, seriously peer, over the edge at “what if?”

For me this has been coming through stress, challenging work, lack of sleep, deadlines, limits, and illness. Life has been full, my responsibilities feeling so vast, that there seemed to not be room for photography in it. I actually asked myself if I should stop for now; if I was trying to do too much.

I haven’t fully answered that question yet but I find myself coming through it all with greater clarity and with a realization that despite all the challenges some wonderful things have taken place throughout it all. I was recently paid to photograph a Baptism and was quite pleased with the result; I’ve had a photographic series published at Rear Curtain (the first and hopefully not the last); I’ve started lightening my gear bag as I wander and travel with wonderful results and more enjoyable trips; I’ve completed a new photobook I am excited about and awaiting the proof with anticipation; I’ve edited down a huge series to 6 images that I think tell a story with greater impact; I’ve begun to expose myself to varying art forms with greater enthusiasm and energy.

This past Saturday I convinced my family to take a drive to Santa Fe and had the chance to visit the Verve Photography Gallery there. It is a wonderful place with a welcome and accommodating staff and some of the most astounding photography gracing the walls. My purpose there was more directed than just taking in the prints displayed. I was after a book, or books, by Norman Mauskopf. Ever since Daniel Milnor (aka. Smogranch) had mentioned Mauskopf in a blog post I’d wanted to see his stuff. Both Milnor and Mauskopf are undertaking or have undertaken projects close to my heart: Milnor is engaged in a lengthy project on New Mexico and Mauskopf has completed fantastic works on horse racing, rodeo, and the Latino descendants of Spanish settlers in Northern New Mexico. All of these projects rank in the “holy crap” level of difficulty.

These two are in the stratosphere of documentary photography and noticing my attraction to their work has made me realize the pull I feel in my photography. What that is exactly still remains to be seen-that will require more practice-but the idea and the way has begun to take form in the fog.

By the way, Mauskopf is teaching a visual storytelling workshop in Santa Fe this October through Santa Fe Photographic Workshops and Daniel Milnor is leading one in Peru.

Aug

2011

Carry Your Crappy Camera

I’ve been thinking about this post for a while. Regular readers here will be aware that I’ve decided to focus on the craft of photography for a while rather than on the gear. The plan is to learn the skills, the vision, the art, the mystery, the feel of making photographs that please me and I’ve found that new or more gear doesn’t always accomplish that for me. And so, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I think about photography.

Thinking about thinking; it is a strange and wondrous exercise.

You see, I love shooting with my Nikon D300. I paid a good sum of money for it. I love the feel of it. I love how I can change settings quickly and intuitively through the myriad of buttons on the outside of the camera body. It feels good in my hands. You know, I’m just into this camera.

Lately though, I’ve taken to shooting with a used Nikon D80 I bought. At first it was just for novelty but I had bought this camera for a couple of reasons: first, I felt I needed a backup camera body; second, I needed something my wife could put on “Auto” and make a nice picture quickly; third, I needed a camera that would keep my interest while shooting on vacation that she could also use easily; fourth, I needed something I didn’t value quite as much as my D300 because I have two little boys who tend to dump sand on me, jump on me, and splash water on me (decidedly non camera-friendly occurrences.) So the D80 entered the stable.

But after a while I noticed something about how I thought about this backup D80 camera: I didn’t care about it as much. Now, normally that would make me want to shoot with it less. But I found myself shooting with it more. Strange. So I started that thinking about thinking thing again. Why?

Well, I’m more willing to take risks with the D80. I’m more willing to get it close to water and I’m more willing to get it down near sand. I’m more willing to use it in precarious situations and I’m more willing to hand it over to someone else.

The image above is an example of what I’m talking about. My extended family and I were walking in a wood in western Maryland while attending a family reunion and my 3 year old son was dragging behind (short legs and all that.) My 18 year old nephew hung back with me and at one point, looking back toward my son he said, “this would make a cool shot, Uncle Brian. The trees above and Sebastian below.” He gestured with his hand that he was visualizing something. I didn’t even look back to see what he was showing me- I just handed him my D80. “You see it; you shoot it.” I told him. And he did.

It turns out it is one of my favorite images from that reunion. And I didn’t take it. But it wouldn’t have been made had I been carrying that D300-I covet it too much and probably wouldn’t have handed it over so freely. And that got me thinking. 🙂

When we travel to foreign countries and are wanting to make portraits of people, wouldn’t it be nice to occasionally hand over the camera and let our subjects make a picture of us? Or have their family member or friend make a picture of us and our kind and generous subject together, to remember the occasion? Maybe we could even send them a copy of the picture or even print one right there with our Pogo printer so they could have a memento and stories to tell? It would be a great way to break the ice; a great way to engage with our subject; a great way to build a bond. Sure, perhaps occasionally a camera could get stolen. That’s what insurance is for. But it also wouldn’t be your D300.

Now, I’m aware that a D80 is not a “crappy” camera to most. But it is my cheaper and older camera-I bought it used, for not a lot of money, so it is more dispensable to me. What is your older camera that you might be willing to take greater risks with? How about breaking it out and carrying it with you and get those photographs you might have been passing up for fear of damaging your gear?

P.S: Stay tuned for a fun little announcement form me within the next few days as well.