BetterPhoto Instructor Insights

The Shot on the Way to "the Shot"

We're in Acadia National Park this week for our last location workshop until the fall. The second half of this workshop will be Nova Scotia next week. We're really looking forward to getting some R&R at home before the fall workshop series. Of course, I have a quick trip to Vancouver for a PPA class beginning July 17 - 23.....THEN a couple of months home to visit with our great cat, who has probably forgotten us by now (I hope not!). But, here in Acadia, one of the great shots to get is at Boulder beach at sunrise. If we're lucky enough to get a "hard" warm sunrise, which occurs when the sun comes over a small hill with no haze at the horizon, a warm glow occurs and the granite rocks turn pink for a few seconds, as in this image. But we're always in such a hurry to get there, leaving at 0450, that we travel with blinders on and don't see anything until we get to "the location."

Luckily, on this day, there was very low tide at Frenchman's Bay at Hulls Cove, and the shot at the end of the driveway out of the motel was and "eye popper" would not be denied. We shot there for about 20 minutes until the red glow dissappated. And we still made it in plenty of time (driving the national park speed limit of 35mph) to get the shot we planned at Boulder beach.

I guess the moral here is to always keep your eyes open and your mind clear for the "shot on the way to the shot!"

Back Up To Downeast Maine!

It's been a pretty exhausting few months and we're off to one more two week trip (workshop) to Maine and Nova Scotia before settling back to "normal" life for a short while. The next few days are a luxury as we will have about 5 days to produce our own work for stock and for print production. I will also be working on very long exposures, using the Nikon D2X, to see and study the results. On the film image here, I had to adjust for reciprosity failure by doubling the exposure from 2 to 4 minutes. Very briefly, reciprosity failure occurs when an exposure is so long that the film loses it's ability to gather light, and adding more time will compensate. I will double exposure times, when using film, at 15 seconds. A 15 second exposure will become a 30 second exposure. I will be trying to shoot this same scene of Portland Head Light (weather permitting) with the D2X and will compare the results. There is no reciprosity failure using digital, but there may be an issue with noise, which can happen with digital cameras. If the stars are aligned and the weather gods are with us, I'll be able to post a digital version of this image next week!

Expect the Unexpected

After one full day at home to mostly catch up on Betterphoto critiques (!), we left and arrived in St. Michaels on Maryland's eastern shore to conduct a workshop. One of the great marshland areas and migratory rest stops is an area called Blackwater. We started scouting and doing some personal shooting yesterday in preparation for our workshop starting tomorrow, and drove to Blackwater in bright late morning light to see what was up. I started to drive off without our camera bags, since it's only a scouting mission. But, decided to load the gear because "...you never know..." Driving through the Blackwater loop, we noticed that many of the grasses were brown rather than the robust green and I knew why. There has been an infestation of Nutria, non-indigenous rodents brought in to control something a hundred years ago or so and remained, propagated, and consume the roots of the marsh grasses, destroying them. I mention this only because when we saw the grassy areas fenced in (enclosed image), we were glad to see that an attempt was being made to block off the nutria from creating more damage, but a little dismayed at the unnaturalness of the scene. But, I quickly got very interested in the graphic of the sticks on the calm water in the harsh light. The more I shot it, the more I liked it. I shot it on film, digital, xpan, and with an array of filters. Coloring a bright, colorless scene with filters is a favorite technique. The resulting image is an object lesson for Susi and I to always load the camera bags, especially on a "non-shooting" scouting mission!

Back on the road to NC., etc .

Well, we're (Sue and I) are back on the road for the month of June. I just finished a lecture and book signing (Fine Art Nature Photography and Fine Art Flower Photography) at the Hickory camera club in Hickory, NC. It's a really great club and I've been there several times. Tomorrow, we'll be at Grandfather Mountain for their annual Nature Photography Weekend. It's grown over the years to be a fantastic event with several speakers. Aside from myself, there is the great Bill Lea, one of the best wildlife photographers around and the great Kevin Adams, author of several books on wildflower trails and waterfalls locations. Hugh Morton owns Grandfather Mountain (http://grandfathermountain.com), which is the only privately owned biosphere, and is meticulous in maintaining the natural environment. The annual Nature Photography event is opened up to reservations January 1 and is usually sold out by the end of the month. My presentation is Friday evening. I'll show a tray of color transparencies of work shot in the last two years, since I was there last, and about 50 digital files shot since the addition of the Nikon D2X to my equipment in February, then a number of Xpan transparencies. Then we're free to shoot until Sunday morning, afterwhich we drive back home to pack and leave Monday morning to conduct a workshop on Maryland's Eastern Shore, then home for a few days to make prints for a corporate client, then off the Maine for a week long workshop in Maine and Nova Scotia....whew.....then to a private one-on-one with a person in Newport R.I......THEN home for about 2 weeks before hitting the road again. It may sound like it's a bit crazy, but it really is fun and exhilerating, especially when my partner and I can travel together.

Here's an image shot on the Fuji S2. Two images, one color and the other in infrared, adjusting the opacity of the infrared layer to let the color show through. Then applying Kai's Pyrmid Paint plug-in. It's one of my favorite of Kai's plug ins.

Well, off to the sack. Back on the road bright and early tomorrow!

The Twin Towers with Infrared Light Photography

Beginning in the early spring through the summer, I shoot infrared (film and digital), and I’m reminded of a past assignment.

A few years ago, I was in NYC to photograph icons for a Japanese stock agency.
I haven’t done a lot of that sort of work in my career. So, needless to say, I was pretty stoked about it. My agent was with me for “protection,” and to keep an eye on my gear while shooting in the street, and in Times Square.

I’ve been to NYC quite a bit in my past life as a jazz musician, so I knew the fast and exciting pace.

I was waiting to see the weather before deciding which film to use, because I really wanted to shoot infrared. A deep blue sky is workable, but can be bland after a while. Overcast would work out ok, if there were detail in the clouds. But, what I was hoping for was a blue sky with white puffy clouds, a perfect infrared day. And we were lucky.

I’m always asked about what infrared filter to use. The two basic choices are a red filter and an opaque filter. The red filter is a deep red 25A filter. The opaque filter is just that, opaque. You can’t see through it. It records only infrared and creates a deep silver glow in the image, depending on how you develop it (I used infrared film here). Digital infrared can look great also. Ben Wilmore’s book, How to Wow, has a great example of digital “faux” infrared. The 25A can be used along with a polarizer to darken the sky, which really “pops out” puffy white clouds! I use the Singh Ray I-ray filter for film infrared and a Harrison and Harrison opaque filter specifically made for the Fuji S2 sensor, which I have dedicated to infrared.

The image here was shot almost one year, to the day, before 9-11. The light and sky conditions were perfect for infrared. In order to avoid lens flare, I repositioned myself to merge the sun behind the left tower. After shooting the ordinary shots and getting that out of my system, I began to look up through different things in the plaza. Every so often, we’ll look through the finder and it’s like getting hit by a bolt of lightning. When I saw this image in the finder, I got very excited and shot from this location, fine tuning compositions for a while using color transparency film and infrared. When I got the film back the color images were pretty bland, but the b+w infrared had a wonderful glow and seemed to really capture the moment.

I couldn’t have imagined the state of these building one year later, but whenever I think back to making this image, I feel fortunate to have been there to record it!

On the Road to Carolina Beach, NC

This is an exceptionally busy time of year for nature photographers. After finishing up in Helen, GA teaching a class for the PPA of GA, I'm now in Carolina Beach, NC, teaching a class for the PPA of NC. This is such a great time of year to be here. The people haven't really showed up yet and the photo ops are incredible. There is a great cyprus swamp with blooming flowers around it, a great arboretum. Tomorrow, we're off to take a ferry to Bald Head lighthouse and to photograph an historic city in the vacinity.

With the class out today we worked on some special effects imagery, including panning and multiple exposures. The class is all professional level photographers, so they pretty much wanted to be left to their own devices after my instructional slide presentation, giving me a rare opportunity to photograph a few of my own images. Of course, I really can't resist sharing ideas with other photographers. One of the best things about using digital when teaching in the field is that I can show someone exactly what I'm talking about and what I'm trying while it's happening.

I found a great small stand of trees with some small green bushes in the foreground. I thought that it would make a great multiple, so I called the class over to show them the technique. After seeing the first image, those with multiple capability cameras went off to work on their own multiple exposure ideas. But, some did not have multiple exposure capability. So, I showed them how to achieve the same effect with a single exposure, while panning upwards, keeping the trees in the same line as much as possible.

Despite the fact that the weather was a bit rainy and unpredictable, we managed to work "between the rain drops," and had a great and very productive shooting day!

A Great Day for Pictures of Ferns and Pink Azaleas!

What a great day we had today! I was hired to teach private photo lessons to two individuals. We were at a great and well known garden in Wheaton, MD called Brookside Gardens. The azalea were in full bloom and lining many pathways with a great array of colors. There was a great area of pristine fern. The greens were that great early spring lime green. We had some great reflections in a small pond area to get started, then moved on to finding good flower subjects. Bright colored flowers were everywhere. We worked on finding interesting subjects with soft, colorful backgrounds.

Backgrounds are critical. Busy backgrounds or a bright highlight can greatly take away from the visual impact of your composition. Backgrounds in bright sunlight are a little known very effective and beautiful background. Distant colorful areas can be used to add color behind your subject. The attached image was shot with a 200mm Nikkor macro lens on a D2X digital camera (making it a 300mm macro). The image was composed to take advantage of the brightly lit azalea bush 50 feet away. The green (fern) against pink (azalea) composition heightens visual interest.

After 3 and a half hours, the students went to lunch to return to Brookside to work on what they learned and I returned home to catch up on work and get ready to go on the road again next Sunday for a week to Wilmington, NC to teach a class at the PPA of NC.

Far Out Pictures of Streams and Brooks

Well, we're on the last few days of our first workshop road trip. We did our Smoky Mountain workshop, which fortunately always fills up and then I came to do the Georgia Professional Photographer's of America school in Helen, GA. What a far out place! Right outside of my back door is this great rapids area (the image is included herein). What's really cool about this area is that the gold part at the top of the image is light reflecting from the hotel on the opposite side of the stream! When you look at it, it just looks like sparkling high lights, but when you do a very long exposure (30 seconds on the D2X), the color just builds and builds and when you see the final image, it looks like a small area of gold! I had the class here Tuesday evening after dinner and everyone freaked out and had a ball! It's really great when I can discover a great image and can share it with everyone!
[editor's note: here are more cool pictures of streams and brooks]

I came back in and "crashed" immediately at around 10pm. Since I don't need much sleep, I woke up at 4am! and am writing this blog entry, then will get to catching up on some critiquing.

Thus is the life of an itinerant photographer.