BetterPhoto Instructor Insights

The Office or The Outdoors? That is the Dilemma!

We've been having so much rain in northern California lately! I wish I could send it to places in the country that need it desperately, like Oklahoma and Nebraska and Texas, to name a few. With all this rain, it's kept me focused on getting office chores done - like editing my digital files, prepping them for stock submissions, scanning older slides and archiving things. In short, getting my act together!

As I sit watching the downpour hit my office window, though, I have cabin fever. There's so much to do here, but there's so much beauty outside. Yikes! So, when the breaks in the storms come, I take a break from the office and head for the outdoors to capture what all this water has created: lush green forests of oaks, bay laurels and madrone trees, dripping with lichens, covered in mosses. Water cascading down mossy rocks Overcast skies are great for that type of photography, and with everything wet, there is a rich saturation to the colors.

It's the season of mustard between the grapevine rows in wine country, too, and when the sun shines on a freshly washed landscape, there is a clean crispness to the light that I love. We get incredible cumulus clouds and wispy "mare's tails" in the skies, above the saturated yellow mustard rows, and it screams to be photographed! I used a polarizer to make the clouds pop a little more in the sky, and in the process, it actually helped to saturate the yellow - not that yellow needs it very often - but there was just enough wetness on the mustard plants that it cut some of the glare from that. All in all, it improved a picture that celebrates the great skies of spring in the wine country.

My challenge is not unlike what many of you face, working full-time jobs and having little time to get out there and photograph. But if you carry your camera system with you, and plan a little extra time getting to and from the office, you can make the time to create pictures - and be ready for the days when the weather makes photography that much more exciting.

In the long run, I'll hopefully get both the work done in the office and some great photographs, too, during this wild month of March!

Have a great day, everyone.

Photographing with Awe and Wonder

While organizing picture files this past week, I came across an old black and white print from a story I’d done for Sunset Magazine. It was a feature on the north shores exhibit of the Denver Zoo, a new installation at that time, and big draw for the Zoo. The polar bears were the biggest hit of the new section. The underwater window was a great place to watch them paddling around in their pool. In fact, it was very hard to get space at the window most the time, as adults and kids pressed their faces to the glass for an awe-filled look at these wonderful animals. I waited a long time for this image, but it was just what I was looking for - a one-on-one inspection. Was the polar bear wondering what this 'odd-looking' creature was, outside it's environment? Was the child wondering what this ‘cuddly bear’ was doing swimming around? Whatever the thoughts, there was surely WONDER happening in the air when I made this picture.

This got me thinking about how special a life as a photographer really is. I get to go to great places - even just the local marsh, and experience awe and wonder - whether it’s mine, or someone else’s. I experience the beauty of birds, trees, plants, flowers, and animals. I witness the best sunrises and sunsets and full moons, and I feel the cool breezes, the gentleness of snow falling, and yes, even the biting sleet as it hits my face - all while out there, photographing.

I also get to experience great travel locations - and wonderful people, unique cultures; I meet and photograph mayors, hot air balloon pilots, scientists, local cheese makers and farmers. I'm invited to share in a Swiss wedding, a Mexican parade festival, to taste fried grasshoppers and homemade Tuscan olive oil.

I’m convinced that all of those experiences happen because I try to live my life through the filter of Awe and Wonder. And what other job could give me such great experiences?

Now, before you all go and quit your nice salary-producing positions, you can experience the same things, by being an inspired photographer, a passionate photographer. Whether it's weekends or on vacations, you can have the same awe-inspired experiences. You just have to get out there and put yourself in places that interest you. With photography as your passion, you can have the greatest experiences outside the walls of your office. So in this New Year to come, make a resolution to get out there more, to explore new places, and revisit old ones, to see Nature and Life more deeply through the lens of your camera. Share you work, your experiences, with others around you, share the Awe and Wonder you have. It's catching, and it's the very thing that can deepen other people's lives, too!

Happy New Year, everyone.

A Season for Creativity, Reflecting, and Rest

I finally finished my intensive schedule of field workshops and photo tours in early November, and was very excited that all of November and December were 'mine' to do as I pleased. And oh, did I have big plans. I was going to completely gut the office and clean up the messy piles of stuff that had been neglected in all my wanderings. I was going to attack the garden and weed out the overgrown plants and prune back the roses and maple trees. I was going to process the 25 GBs of digital images that have been waiting for the new Apple G5 computer I needed to process them efficiently. On the home front, we were going to paint, install flooring on the first floor, and clean out the garage. Oh, and did I mention go out regularly and make photographs? It doesn't take a high-level mathematician to figure out that there wasn't enough time in these two months to do all the above, not when you include time with a partner, a dog, reconnecting with some old friends, getting the annual medical appointments out of the way, and some well-earned rest.

© Brenda Tharp. All rights Reserved.

About the first of December, I panicked - only one month left and I still hadn't been out the door much to photograph, or finished reorganizing my slides, or processing my digital files! Even though progress was being made in many directions, I was feeling overwhelmed with the piles of work still ahead. That's when I stopped myself and took a deep breath, and let it all out again. I had to reframe things. I looked around me and saw that the time was being used to recharge my internal batteries. Walking the dog daily was good for my body and my soul. And sorting through the piles of stuff in my office, rather than being daunting, meant revisiting pictures I had made and put aside during my busy schedule. Those pictures inspired me and new ideas for projects developed. As I got to the bottom of each pile, I felt new energy to tacklel the next. Rather than looking forward with a pressing deadline, I got lost in the "now," in the creative ideas that were spread before me on my light table and my computer screen. I created the image here by playing around taking one digital image, copying it, pasting it as a new layer, flipping it horizontally, and then running curves to lighten the two layers. Some might call all this playing around procrastination, but I'd prefer to call it creative exercise! In spite of all that I have to do, I am enjoying the time off and know that somehow it will all get done when it needs to be.

Have a great week,

Celebrating Personal Vision

“You don’t make a photograph just with a camera, you bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, and the people you have loved.” Ansel Adams

This quote has long been a favorite of mine. As we look at the world around us, each of us is seeing the same things with a unique, personal viewpoint - the filters of our lives, our experiences. It’s no wonder then that 10 people can stand at the classic Valley View in Yosemite and come up with entirely different pictures! What we find interesting may be overlooked by someone else. And that’s the beauty of it. We all get to make great images, if we stand confidently in our unique vision. Too many times, I see photographs that are imitations of a famous view, and while those pictures are fun to have for the collection, the best pictures are the ones that are personal - personally discovered, personally composed and recorded.

Autumn Grasses, Merced River, Yosemite, CA.

This image was made at Valley View, before my group arrived in Yosemite. It’s a pullout for a classic view of the valley with the famous rock formations. But that day, I was seeing the wonderful reflections of colored foliage on the opposite shore of the river, and was drawn to those more than the big scene, even with the great clouds we had!

When I made this pumpkin image in color, I chose to do it on high-grain film, to give it more texture and a softer color palette. It was a personal vision and I was enjoying using very grainy films. Many years later, I had fun learning how to selectively colorize an object in a scene, and decided to try that with this image. First I created a copy layer of the background image. Then, using that layer, I de-saturated the image,and added some contrast. I created a layer mask on that layer next. Then, using the paintbrush, I painted back in one pumpkin in color. My goal was to make a stock photograph that expressed the concept of “standing out in the crowd”, “daring to be different”, and similar phrases. It worked!

Coming across these pictures the other day, I thought it would be a fun Halloween set to post, and a great example of that idea of celebrating your own vision - no matter how you get there, the final result of any photograph, real or manipulated, should be an expression of your personal view of the scene, your interpretation of the moment.

Have a great week, everyone!

Essence of Autumn

Autumn's Glow, Yosemite NP, CA © Brenda Tharp.

I’m teaching a field workshop in Yosemite this week, and on Saturday night, I gave the students their overall challenge for the week: to capture the essence of Autumn in Yosemite. Many of us have seen pictures of the park, or have visited the park, and the iconic images are like siren calls to our cameras. We are so drawn to the grandeur of the scene that we try to capture it all in one frame, and we often end up with postcard pictures - although they might be very pretty ones!

So the group’s challenge was to see beyond the icons, to find the unusual composition of a familiar scene, to find the intimate views that say “Autumn”, even if it’s not obvious that we’re in Yosemite.

Autumn color in Yosemite isn’t the brilliant hues of the northeast or the Smokies, but it has a magic all it’s own. The color turns a landscape of granite and dark trees into a patchwork of color, and people flock to the valley in October to hike amongst the color. The leaves of oaks, dogwood and big leaf maple drop onto the rocks in the woods, line trails with a carpet of soft color, and fill quiet pools of the Merced River, now still with the dryness of the season. And using those pools, there are magical pictures to be made.

On Sunday night, I brought the group to a location with a great view of El Capitan that was also reflected in a relative still pool of water. It was a classic scene of an icon, but one you could do different things with to make a great photo. The edges of the pool had autumn leaves piled up, and there was one small rock with some leaves that caught my eye. But with a group of sixteen people, there wasn’t really room for me to photograph, and I was too busy working with everyone anyway.

The location was inspiring, and impressive, and students did work hard to make good images from the spot. Yet hazy conditions had softened the light and it was not the typical golden glow on El Capitan that many knew was possible. I encouraged everyone to wait it out, as I guessed the smoke would turn the last rays of the sun to a reddish hue, but several still left for dinner. About 20 minutes later, the rock cliff turned a soft pink-red, and I recalled that scene of the rock with leaves, now available to me with most everyone gone. I put on my 100-400mm lens, and then added my 1.4 tele converter for more reach, to simplify the scene. I chose different apertures to render the background a wash of color but with some texture from the rock. That famous rock wall became the perfect background for the rock and leaves. In all its simplicity, this captured the essence of autumn. It was a special moment, one that celebrated the light at the end of the day, while also celebrating the beauty of a season in the park.

SEEING PHOTOGRAPHS EVERYWHERE

Hello everyone,

I just spent the last several days on an annual “Sister’s Weekend”, an event that began last year when my sisters and I decided we needed to get together - sans husbands, boyfriends, etc. - and catch up on everything. Since it was an occasion of sharing, laughing, walking, and girl stuff, making ‘serious’ pictures of anything was not on the schedule! So when it came time for me to travel to Maine, to spend 5 days photographing on my own, I was excited about autumn’s splendor of fall colors. But as I drove northward, I was becoming disappointed as the colors were barely beginning to show. To make matters worse, as I drove towards the cottage I would be staying in, a thick fog descended on the area. By the time I arrived at the cottage, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do next with no fall color to photograph and the fog so thick the scenes weren’t there. But as I stood inside the living room, I suddenly saw the droplets on the screen of the porch door, and the wonderful Adirondack chairs sitting there. I grabbed my tripod and camera and set up to make the image. I used a wide aperture to keep the chairs out of focus, and have only the screen and droplets sharp; The fog caused the edges of the ocean to fade softly away into whiteness, but the screen’s texture kept the upper part from going totally white and distracting the eye.

© Brenda Tharp. All rights reserved.

To me, the chairs are a metaphor of the upcoming season of quiet light and empty cottages, as islanders pack up and go home for the year. The chairs sit empty, perhaps waiting for one last visit, one last conversation. My sister gasped when she saw the image - of her chairs, her cottage porch - it had been transformed by the atmosphere of the fog and the drops on that screen. And my mood was transformed by making that picture. It's just another great lesson in seeing what’s right in front of you!

Have a great day,

Brenda

Creating Abstract Photographs

Grand Prismatic Geyser © Brenda Tharp

I'm posting my blog early as I can't stay up past midnight tonight and tomorrow I travel home from Seattle. I just finished the First Annual Betterphoto Summit here in Seattle. It was fantastic! The camaraderie amongst the students and teachers was terrific - many ideas were shared and the presentations by the instructors were really informative and in several cases entertaining. You know you have something good going on when even the instructors were sitting in on every program being offered! All in all it was a great success and I'm looking forward to next year’s Summit which will be even better.

Last weekend I was in Montana, leading a photo trek, and for part of the trip we were in Yellowstone. In a place so popular as that, how can you possibly make pictures that are different from everyone else's’ photographs? By trying to look beyond the ordinary and see what’s extraordinary about the place. Sure, who can resist photographing the elk in all their majesty with huge antlers, and Old Faithful and other geysers are just so fascinating to watch at any time of day. But there’s a million good pictures of geysers and elk from that park. So for me, the gold mine was in abstract images. An abstract can be defined as a piece of the whole, an extraction of the larger object that, when viewed, might even leave the viewer with some question as to what it is they are viewing! Yet even if we do know what it is, the abstract photo can illuminate a particular part of an object or subject that we find beautiful, intriguing, mysterious.

Grand Prismatic Geyser Detail © Brenda Tharp

With that in mind, I began to look at all the wonderful colors in the runoff areas around the geysers, the multihued sedimentary layers of minerals and bacteria that spread from the geyser or thermal vent. Grand Prismatic, one of the most beautiful features in the park, has just those features, and I found that a view from above it really emphasized the colorful bands of mineral-rich dirt. Using my Canon 100-400mm IS with the 1.4 tele converter, I could isolate just a section of it, which brought out enough texture to also give it a painterly feeling. I used a small aperture to give me the most depth of field possible, and waited for the wind to blow the steam away just enough to bring out all the rich colors. I loved the scalloped edge on the pool, and that became the point of interest in the picture for me. From that vantage point, I found many different views possible, all of them abstracted from the big picture. By applying this same approach to many of the geological and geothermal features in the park, I came away with some really neat abstract images to add to my fine art collection.

ANOTHER GREAT REASON TO ALWAYS CARRY A CAMERA

A time gone by...or has it?

It pays to always have a camera with you! You just never know what’s around the corner, or inside some tiny store, and if you have a camera with you, you’ll be lucky enough to capture some fun and interesting images. It can happen to you. This story is for real. She is for real. Do not attempt to adjust your monitors...

One afternoon after lunch in a restaurant, my partner and I went for a slow walk along the streets of Old Town in Novato. There, we found this neat retro shop - complete with original juke boxes and some fantastic reproductions, Red Flyer wagons, old-time radios, lunch boxes with every superhero painted on them, Route 66 paraphernalia, and more, and that’s where we found Asia. She was serving up freshly popped corn when we sauntered in, and the smell fit the mood of the place very well. But Asia was priceless. I thought “how wonderful that they’ve paid someone to dress to fit in with the store’s theme.” Amazed, I struck up a conversation, and that’s when it got even more interesting. Asia dresses like this every day, including the hair, which can take more than an hour to pin up the way she has it here. I asked why and was told that she simply loves that period of time when these were the styles. But how does she find the clothes? “I make some of them, but I visit a lot of retro clothing stores and find used outfits and shoes here and there. I’m always on the lookout for purses, jewelry and things that I can’t make that fit the style. And the makeup? That too takes a long time to put on, to achieve the real look of the day (for some). All just to live in a time that has passed by, well, for those that let it pass by, anyway.

Of course I had to have her picture - to which she willingly agreed to serve up more popcorn for the camera. The background had all this cool stuff in it to support the look and I knew it would be a great picture!

This was just one time I was lucky to have a camera with me. It was a digital compact camera, but it was a camera nonetheless. Even though there are times when I can't take the bigger SLR camera and lenses, I take the compact digital with me. Having a camera gives you the chance to share what is funny, sad, laughable, mysterious, serendipitous, poignant, and unbelievable. It allows you to show Life as it happens.

But wait! There’s more. There’s her husband, whom I haven’t met yet, but I have since learned also dresses in the same period, and rumor has it their house is decorated in the style of that day. This I have to see - and capture!

Photography is Often Like a Treasure Hunt

When you go out with your camera you really never know what you might find out there. You might be going to a natural place, a farmers market, or an amusement ride. But you never really know what treasures will turn up! So it’s always fun to go with an open mind and try to be as flexible as possible so I will see extraordinary pictures in ordinary places.

One weekend, at the end of teaching a workshop at Pt. Reyes National Seashore, I was part of the class wide effort to cleanup afterwards. But as I opened the janitor’s closet, I stopped as I saw these brooms. They were all stacked up and had great repetition to them. In my overworked imagination, they looked like a platoon of brushes from a Pixar animated movie, and I half expected them to step out on their own and begin sweeping in synchronized unison across the floor. I wouldn’t let anyone touch them until I got my picture - one of the few I made that weekend since I don’t photograph a lot while teaching.

This past week, while teaching a workshop in Coupeville, WA, I took my group to a small private vineyard, where the owner had an old Cord (car) and some wine barrels, an antique oak tasting bar, player pianos being restored, and a flower garden and cats. It was a ‘wild card’, but one of the students had been there and felt it had potential for good pictures. He was right. But when we got there, it was difficult to see the pictures at first, beyond just the car. With determination, I had them looking for the unusual image, as a sort of treasure hunt. Once they got started, I asked the owner, Frank, to show me those player pianos he was working on. I’ve always loved them. So we went into this cinder block building, and it was chaos in there. There were some beautiful finished units along the wall, but many of them were in various stages of assembly and repair. I didn’t really see anything to photograph, but I did love the music that came out of the reproducer piano that was in progress of being restored - so expressive, it was like Rachmaninov was sitting right there! I thanked him, and left the building to go help my students. But while I was out there, a few more went in, and the honky-tonk music that was coming out of one of the finished units drew me back. When I went in this time, I took my camera and tripod. There, inside a cabinet of on player piano, lay the piles of scrolled music - and the lyrical way it folded back on itself had such rhythm. I had found my treasure for that day. A lyrical image - in the form of paper with punch-holes!

For me, these two images represent the potential that’s around any corner, anywhere. If I learn to see well, I can make ordinary objects look great! The treasure was the knowledge that beauty and interest lies right around every corner.

The Inn or the Road?

"Olcan, Kevin, and Steve, an Irishman sitting in for a tune or two"

"The road is always better than the inn." Cervantes said that, and while I never met the man, he's akin to my own thinking. Why spend time in the inn when there is LIFE being lived outside your door? When I travel, I only need a comfortable and clean bed at the inn, since most of my time is spent outside the room, wandering the back streets, sitting in local cafes, dining out, and exploring the museums and architectural wonders of the place. If I'm on a nature trip, there's even more time spent outside, and that suits me just fine. I'll admit that I love to be pampered with plush down comforters and pillows, deep bathtubs, and fragrant hand lotions, but if that's what I want most, I'll schedule a weekend away at a B&B that's in an area that won't tempt me to leave for photographs! Hard to find, but I'm sure they're out there.

On my recent photo tour to Ireland, my group was enthusiastic about staying out of their rooms at the "inn", and we explored the small villages, ruins, wild coast and islands of County Mayo. And at the end of the day, we were still up for trips to the horse races (just to photograph), and to the pubs, listening to our local guide play with other musicians. We got to hear some great music, meet really nice people, and challenge ourselves by photographing in very dark pub conditions. We exp
erimented with 1600 and 3200 ISO settings, The picture here is from a Canon 1DS Mark II set for 3200! I ran Nik Mulitimedia's Dfine filter on it to reduce noise. We practiced our 'fly on the wall technique' for capturing candid moments of the locals, and the musicians. We stayed until the end of those pub sessions, collapsing in our beds back at the inn with the satisfaction of a full 'road' experience.

Olcan Masterson, our untiring guide, liked to say "There's always a high stool at the end of the road", which loosely meant that no matter how rough the day might have been, you always had the pub, where your friends were, where you could catch up on the latest news. Our nights on the stools "at the inn" provided some good photo opportunities and great memories. While sitting around in the inn might seem opposite to Cervantes' thoughts at first, our trip to that "high stool" was just part of the journey to experience the culture more deeply, and I think that's what Cervantes had in mind all along.