BetterPhoto Instructor Insights

Do Your Best Photography: Commitment to the Craft

By Ibarionex Perello

Photo copyright by Ibarionex Perello

The famous Czech photographer Ladislav Sitensky passed away recently at the age of 90. In reading about him, it was reported that he had made over 500,000 photographs, 50,000 of which had been published. He began photography at the age of 14. If you assumed that he had produced the same number of images each year from that young age, he would have created the equivalent of 6,578 photographs a year. Any way you crunch the numbers, that's impressive.

The only way one gets better as a photographer is by shooting. Reading books and magazine articles, surfing the Web for camera and lens reviews, watching videos are all well and good, but it eventually comes down to getting up, walking outside, and making photographs. And as I often tell my students, it's about the willingness to go out there and make a lot of bad photographs as you explore and try to understand what you are seeing and reacting to.

Athletes like Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan and Lance Armstrong may have all been more with a natural talent, but that talent would have been meaningless had they not put in the time to to harness that talent and learn skills that allowed that to take advantage of those innate abilities. So, it is with the photographer. So, it is with me. I'm not putting myself in the league with those guys, but it's the awareness that the process is the same.

The difference between those that take full advantage of their abilities and those that don't is simply doing the work necessary, in other words commitment.

If this is one of the things that I know I do well and that I can become even better by making more time to practice it, why choose not to? It's a question that I think most of us don't ask often enough, because if we did, we'd realize that the only one standing in the way of us growing as artists is ourselves.

Reading about Sitensky, I see a wonderful example of what living a photograph life looks like. It's a beautiful thing to see and be reminded of.

Additional notes... Learn directly from professional photographer Ibarionex Perello! He teaches at BetterPhoto's digital photography school, including these online photo courses: The Pursuit of Light and Portrait Photography Using Available Light.

Travel Photography: Cityscapes at Twilight

By Jim Zuckerman

photo copyright by Jim Zuckerman

The most beautiful time to shoot both large and small cities is twilight. This small village in Austria, Maria Alm, is very quaint and beautiful, and it looks great at sunset and even when the sky is overcast. However, at twilight it’s magical.

In the summer, twilight is late in Europe. Depending on the exact location, it can be 10pm or later. After traveling and shooting all day, it’s exhausting to push yourself to get the best travel photography, but that’s what it takes to get great travel or vacation pictures. I had climbed halfway up a mountain to get this image, and I was surrounded by cows as I made the twilight exposures from a tripod.

When I used to shoot film, I used a tried-and-true exposure formula for twilight (10 seconds at f/8 with 50 ISO). Now with a digital camera, it’s a simple matter to just check the LCD monitor and then adjust the exposure compensation feature from there. This was taken with a daylight white balance.

More on Jim Zuckerman: Learn more in his outstanding online photo workshops, such as Perfect Digital Exposure and Techniques of Natural Light Photography. BetterPhoto.com also offers many other Internet photography courses on camera exposure and natural light and also travel photography courses.

Approaching Strangers: Street Photography

By Ibarionex Perello

photo copyright by Ibarionex Perello

One of the things that I encouraged my students to do at the recent BetterPhoto Summit photography conference in New York was to approach strangers about making their photograph. It's my belief that at a public cultural event like the New York City Marathon, people are more willing to be photographed than they might be if you just walked up to them on the street. There is a festive and open energy in the air which makes such street photography so much easier, especially for those inexperienced with doing this.

I know that there is a lot of fear and anxiety about approaching people, but it's been my experience that the worst thing is not that they say "no". The worst thing is actually the anxiety and tension we feel at the thought of approaching someone, not the actual rejection when it does happen. And since people say yes more often than they say no, it's a worthwhile thing to do.

There is no easy way to get past the fear. You just have to make the choice to do it, but the more you do, the easier it becomes. It still comes up for me. The anxiety never completely goes away, but for the images I get and the even the occasional "no" is far, far better than the regret I feel for not taking the risk.

The students who took on the challenge produced some wonderful images of people. These are images they might have likely never had made had they not be pushed to do so. The workshops are great as they can help push you to take on such challenges. When it comes down to it, as a photographer you really need to rely on yourself to push you into unfamiliar territory. Otherwise, you're condemning yourself to only make the same images over and over again.

What's the fun in that.

Note: BetterPhoto.com's school of photography offer many excellent online photography classes, including these two by Ibarionex Perello: Portrait Photography Using Available Light and The Pursuit of Light. In addition, Susan and Neil Silverman teach the online digital camera class: Street Photography.

Reflections Photography

By Deborah Sandidge

photo copyright by Deborah Sandidge

Colmar, France, is one of the most picturesque places on earth with its historic villages and quaint architecture. It's an excellent location to photograph, put it on your list! But you don't have to go to France for reflection photography. You can find water reflections everywhere.

Water reflections are wonderful - they add another dimension to a subject. A long exposure enhances a reflection with a soft painterly look. On a windless day, a watery reflection can be mirror perfect. A slight breeze results in brushstrokes of color and patterns, creating a magical composition. Make great pictures!

Note: Deborah Sandidge teaches a couple of excellent Internet photo courses - "Photoshop - Enhancing Images and Creating Works of Art" and "Digital Infrared Photography" - at the BetterPhoto online digital photography school

Street Photography in New York City

By Ibarionex Perello

photo copyright by Ibarionex Perello

There are few things that hold the allure for me photographically than a walking city. Simply walking out the door provides an unlimited palette for street photography. In New York City, for example, it all involves just shoe leather.

There is something about the physicality of walking for hours while seeing intently that provides an almost meditative space. That's especially the case when I put aside expectations of making "great" photographs and rather focus on the moment that I am in the midst of in terms of light, color and gesture. It's always a bit of a struggle to get into that place when I first arrive, but after a short while I'm able to put the ego aside and just move through the life and world around me. And when I'm lucky and prepared, I can make an image that not only works, but captures my sense of discovery.

Sometimes, the moment is waking up the subtlety of light, the gradation from bright white to gray to black, accented by the presence of a figure leaning back in a chair. In and of themselves, they wouldn't be particularly interesting, but their juxtaposition makes for something wonderful to my eye.

Such moments are everywhere, all the time. But the challenge becomes putting whatever agenda aside that I have in my head and becoming open enough to recognize a momentary and beautiful convergence and to raise the camera at just the right moment to capture them.

Note: Pro photographer Ibarionex Perello teaches a number of excellent online photo courses, including The Pursuit of Light. Also at BetterPhoto's online photography school, Susan and Neil Silverman teach the online digital camera class: Street Photography.

Artistic Images: Seeking Different Photos in Bhutan

By Brenda Tharp

photo copyright by Brenda Tharp

One of the great advantages of returning to a place after a year is that you’ve had time to review and reflect on what photographs you made, and what you would like to do differently.

The top of Dochu La, a pass over the mountains in Bhutan, is littered with prayer flags, and 108 stupas, and there is a plethora of photographic opportunities there. Having crossed that pass four times now, I am certain that the best light is soft, diffused, even foggy light. When the sun comes out, there are still photos to make, but the mood of the fog/mist just adds so much to the place.

We were lucky on this trip, we got to the top for some incredibly beautiful scenes of low clouds in the valleys in contrast with the tall dark cypress trees, which made for graphically interesting scenes. The morning sunlight was soft enough to manage in terms of contrast, and about the time it was getting too strong, the clouds moved up and over the pass, engulfing us. Perfect! We turned to other more intimate details of what was there.

The hillside across from the stupas is a visually cluttered mess of prayer flags - strung from every branch, every tree, and while it’s colorful, it’s really messy to try and capture artistic images or the essence of it (see picture below) That provided the challenge for me. I walked around, looking for ways to express the essence of all of it, and when I turned around at one point, I found the scene above to be much more interpretive.

Note: Brenda Tharp, a top travel photographer, teaches many online photo courses at BetterPhoto.com, including one that focuses on how to capture artistic images and another on macro photography. Also consider other online photo classes at BetterPhoto's digital photography school.

photo copyright by Brenda Tharp

Picture Taking Tips: How to Create Artistic Images with a Digital SLR Camera!

by Kerry Drager

While Photoshop and other digital darkroom software boasts so many creative approaches, your own digital SLR camera can be used to make an eye-catching variety of artistic images. Two top professional photographers (below) share their picture taking tips and artistic pictures on creating a beautiful look of movement with "just" a digital camera.
Enjoy!
Kerry

Sisters of the Sea... by Deborah Sandidge
Starfish - photo copyright Deborah Sandidge

For this photograph, I wanted to create a sense of motion with the starfish, the idea of waves rushing past. This is easy to do with a zoom lens, sand, shells and a few willing starfish. An overcast day provided even light and allowed for a slightly longer exposure time. With the camera mounted on a tripod, I twisted and zoomed the lens during exposure to imply motion for the two starfish. How simple is that?

The Expressive Image in Santa Fe, NM ... by Brenda Tharp

Trees in Motion - photo copyright Brenda Tharp

This area had beautiful orange/red/yellow ground cover, and that’s all you need for adding some hint of Autumn to a picture! Several of us were standing there panning up, down, up and down, and a variety of other directions to try and abstract the scene for a painterly effect. The “secret” is to start your movement before you press the shutter, and press it while still moving, continuing to move after you hear the shutter close. Like following through in a golf swing or tennis swing, that smooth movement will give you results like the above picture. If you press the shutter and then move the camera up or down, you’ll probably have some detail registered, and then a swoosh of colors, if the shutter is long enough. Otherwise, your picture will be made before you get the chance to move!

NOTE: Brenda Tharp teaches many Internet photography courses, including Creating Visual Impact. Also check out Deborah Sandidge's online photo class: Digital Infrared Photography. BetterPhoto's digital photo school, by the way, offers more than 80 classes that provide professional picture taking tips.

Dawn at the 'Bean'

by Jim Zuckerman

For their assignments, several of my on-line students here at Betterphoto have submitted pictures of the "Bean" in Chicago's Millenium Park, and I am always intrigued by this unique structure.  After giving a seminar in Peoria, Ilinois to over 200 people for the Peoria Camera Club, I drove to Chicago specifically to photograph it.  During the day (it was a Sunday) there were dozens of people milling around and from underneath I used a 15mm fisheye to capture the amazing distorted reflections.  The next morning I went there at dawn and caught the lights of downtown Chicago reflecting in the polished contours with a 14mm ultra wide angle.

Velcro

by Jim Zuckerman

I used an electron microscope last week for the first time in many years. This fascinating instrument allows us to see very tiny things in great detail, and the depth of field is utterly incredible.  The image that you see here is velcro magnified 30 times.  The SEM (scanning electron microscope) only renders images in black and white because it works by bombarding a subject with electrons and not with visible light.

Intimate Portrait of a Baby Chimp

By Jim Zuckerman

Here in Kenya I went to a research center  and  reserve for chimpanzees established by Jane Goodall.  The chimps were in a large enclosure of many acres, and it is a completely natural East African habitat.  The animals can be anywhere in this large area, but when my photo tour group arrived they were very close to the electric fence that surrounds the compound.  I’m sure they find humans just as interesting as we find them.

One of the females had a very young baby, and she held it close to her as she sat on the other side of the fence watching us.  The picture you see below was taken when I was only about 15 inches away.  I shot through the wires with my 70-200mm telephoto.   A telephoto macro lens would have been ideal, but I don’t travel with that.  Instead, I have a 50mm macro because it’s small and light.  In this instance,  however,  the 50mm lens wouldn’t allow me to fill the frame as much as I wanted considering the distance I had to work from. Once when I tried to get even closer, I was zapped by the charge running through the wires.

In order to get a tight shot of just the baby, I used my 70-200mm telephoto zoom with extension tubes.  These are hollow tubes that fit between the body and the lens, and they allow any lens to focus closer to the subject  than  they ordinarily can.  There is a certain amount of light loss, but this is always the case when you photograph extremely close to a subject.

As I laid on the ground, I concentrated on the baby’s eyes to make sure they were as sharp as possible.  Depth of field was extremely shallow, but the light level was low.  My camera settings were 1/125th of a second at f/11 with 320 ISO.  I used aperture  priority to make sure I was getting the depth of field I wanted, but at the same time I was careful not to let the shutter speed get too slow.  The mother kept shifting the baby to different areas of her body, and I had to be patient until I was able to get the composition you see here.

I am heading home at this time after a very successful and thrilling trip to Kenya.