October 2016 – To Travel Hopefully

Under the Milky Way Tonight [Encore Publication]: How to make great images including our home galaxy

Not too long ago, making images of the Milky Way was not practical for most photo enthusiasts. Only astronomers and a handful of professional astrophotographers had the expensive equipment required to capture sufficient light from the cluster of quite dim stars that we refer to as the Galactic Core in the night sky. Shooting with a very long exposure didn’t do the trick for the Milky Way, because leaving the camera’s shutter open for more than about 15-30 seconds would blur each star’s image due to rotation of the Earth. These blurs, called star trails, could make for striking images with the stars appearing to streak in circles across the sky, but the subtle beauty of the Milky Way would be lost with these long exposures.

But in the last five years or so, camera sensors have become much more sensitive to light, and now it is possible–indeed quite easy–for photo enthusiasts to photograph our home galaxy without expensive specialized equipment.

Here’s how:

You will need a camera with a sensor that can gather a lot of light and with a shutter that can be kept open for a long time. These requirements limit the range of suitable cameras to full-frame DSLRs and advanced interchangeable lens mirrorless cameras. You will also need a fairly fast wide-angle lens: I recommend a zoom or prime (fixed focal length) lens with a focal length of 14-16mm on a full-frame camera, and a maximum aperture of f/4 or faster. For astrophotography I most often use the Nikon 16-35mm f/4 lens. It’s got great image quality and is well built, and of course it is wide enough and fast enough for the purposes of capturing the Milky Way.

You will also need a heavy, solid tripod. I’ve been successful using a lighter weight tripod for Milky Way shots while traveling, but a good professional tripod is better. I use the SLIK 615-315 with a ball head.

Finally, you’ll want to have a remote shutter release, either a hardwired cable release or a wireless remote release. This is to trigger the camera without touching it, so as to avoid blurring the image from the vibration of your touch.

Once you have the right equipment, it’s fairly straightforward to photograph the Milky Way. Choose a dark sky area, far away from the light pollution of any cities or other sources of stray nighttime light. Shoot toward the Galactic Core where the stars of the Milky Way appear brightest and most colorful. To plan for where the GC will be on any given date and time and at any given location, I use a smartphone app called PhotoPills: PhotoPills in App Store. Try to include foreground and/or middle-ground subjects to add interest to your composition. The image below, made at Yosemite National Park, is appealing because the Milky Way is seen rising above the iconic peak known as Half Dome.

The Milky Way is seen arched through the sky above Half Dome and other landforms in Yosemite Valley. Careful composition adds drama to your Milky Way images by including Earth-based subjects as well as the sky. Buy this photo on my website

With your fast wide-angle lens on your full-frame camera, all mounted on your stable tripod, you are ready to shoot. Remove any filters on the lens, set your camera on full manual mode, select a fast ISO (I usually start at about 3200 and sometimes have to go even higher) and a wide aperture (f/4 or wider), and choose a shutter speed of 20-25 seconds (shorter if your lens is longer than about 18mm). You can use the 500 Rule, which states that shutter speed should be approximately 500 divided by the focal length of the lens; for example, for a 16mm lens you can use a shutter speed of not longer than about 31 seconds. Turn off your autofocus on your lens or camera, as it will not work in so dark a setting; instead, manually set your focus to a point near infinity where the stars appear sharp in your viewfinder (or better yet, on your live-view screen). I like to tape my lens to this setting before it gets dark, so I know the focus won’t change while I’m out in the field in the dark. It’s also a good idea to turn off your camera’s long-exposure noise reduction feature, if it has one, as this wastes time in the field and it’s equally effective to reduce the noise in Lightroom during post-processing. Of course, you want to be sure you are shooting RAW files.

Go ahead and shoot a lot of frames, experimenting with different ISO settings and compositions. It is often a good idea to get a very long exposure, sometimes several minutes long, so that your foreground subjects will be properly exposed. The frames with the foreground well exposed can later be combined in Photoshop with the ones in which the night sky is properly exposed.

This image was made from several frames: one long exposure for the lake, trees, and mountain in the foreground and middle-ground, and several different 25-second exposures that each captured a different meteor during the peak of the Perseid Meteor Shower. The resulting image shows all of these objects quite prominently, along with the Milky Way.

You may want to combine several different images to see all the features of the night sky and the terrestrial objects clearly. Buy this photo on my website

With practice, you’ll find that capturing the Milky Way is within your reach, so long as you have suitable equipment and the patience required to compile enough images that a few will turn out to be successful. I believe it’s well worth the effort because a good Milky Way shot is so subtle, colorful, and strikingly beautiful. Good shooting!

Have you created a Milky Way image that you love? What were the key components to your success? What were the challenges you faced? Please share your thoughts and experiences here.

Want to read more posts about photographic techniques? Find them all here: Posts on Techniques.

ProCam 4 Review: The best iOS camera app I’ve ever used

I’ve posted repeatedly about the importance of understanding how to take manual control of your camera in order to make images that are properly exposed and focused. Whether you are using a professional DSLR, an advanced full-frame mirrorless ILC, a compact point-and-shoot, or the camera built into your smart phone, there is no way you will get consistently acceptable results if you leave the camera’s settings to its auto mode. See this post for an overview: Post on Beyond the Auto Mode.

For the past two days I have been testing an iPhone app called “ProCam 4”, which is by far the best iOS camera app I’ve ever used. Like the “Manual” camera app that I’ve been using for years, ProCam 4 allows the manual selection of ISO, shutter speed, exposure compensation, and focus distance (note that the iPhone camera’s lens has a fixed aperture, so F-stop cannot be manually set). Also like the Manual app, ProCam 4 allows images to be captured using RAW mode, which has a great many advantages over capture in JPEG format (see this post for more information: Post on RAW Capture). And both of these camera apps display a histogram to assist in setting exposure properly.

But ProCam 4 offers far more functionality than does the Manual app or any other iOS camera app I’ve tried. Here is a partial list of some of my favorite additional features:

Shutter Priority: You can choose an exposure mode in which you select the shutter speed first and the app will set the appropriate ISO.
Exposure Bracketing: You can shoot a series of four shots at different exposures to increase the likelihood that one of them will be at the best exposure for the lighting conditions. The series of shots can also be combined using HDR tools found in Lightroom, Photoshop, and other editing software into a single image with a higher range of tones from very dark to very bright.
White Balance: You can adjust white balance in the app, which is often preferable to having to adjust it in your RAW files during post-processing.
Virtual Horizon: The display can show you when the horizon is level.
Slow Shutter Options: You can select long fixed shutter speeds as well as bulb mode to keep the shutter open for as long as you’d like.
RAW+JPEG: You can choose to store the image in both RAW and JPEG formats.
Editing Options: This app provides many advanced in-camera editing tools and filters.

With all this incremental functionality, your little phone’s camera begins to behave a lot like a more advanced standalone camera. While the iPhone’s camera, with its small sensor and its tiny fixed-aperture non-interchangeable lens, still cannot compare to a professional or enthusiast DSLR or ILC camera, the results using ProCam 4 are vastly improved compared to using the phone’s native camera app. At $4.99 to purchase via the iTunes Store, this app is a great buy and a serious enhancement to the iPhone’s built-in camera.

You can find the ProCam 4 app here: ProCam 4 app.

What app do you use to control your phone’s camera? What do you like and dislike about it? Please share your thoughts here.

Want to read more posts about photography gear? Find them all here: Posts on Gear.

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If You Can’t Be with The Camera You Love [Encore Publication]: How to make the best of it when you don’t have ideal kit with you

There’s an old adage that goes, “The best camera is the one you have with you.” That is never more true than for travel photography. As travelers, we have to compromise regarding what gear we pack for a whole trip, and then we have to compromise again with respect to what equipment we can pack on a particular day’s outing during the trip. If a flight is involved, we’re often obligated to leave much of our gear at home so as to avoid having to check our precious photography equipment. If a good deal of hiking, biking, or travel via public transportation is required, we may have to leave bulky or heavy items in the hotel room for the day.

Fortunately, it’s never been easier to ensure we always have at least some backup solution to keep shooting even when a key camera, lens, filter, or tripod has to be left behind. The smartphone that nearly everyone carries with them at all times likely has a pretty darn good camera attached to it. My Apple iPhone 6s, for example, comes with a 12 MP camera, incorporating a decent if small sensor and a tolerable quality and moderately fast (f/2.2) lens. Even the smaller “selfie” camera has a 5 MP sensor.

No one will confuse the images made using this camera phone with those made using my professional DSLR camera and collection of lenses, but in a pinch I can get acceptable quality shots with just the phone’s camera. The trick is understanding how to use your smartphone’s camera, or your small point-and-shoot camera, in the right way to capture the images, and then to post-process the images in such a way as to overcome the compromises built into the camera.

Just yesterday I found myself on a family day trip to the annual Scottish Highland Gathering and Games without my professional camera gear. I made the best of things and shot all day with just my camera’s phone. I’m fairly pleased with the resulting images, even though of course they would have been better had I had access to my regular camera and a few choice lenses and accessories. Here are a few of my images along with some tips on how to get the best out of a not-so-great camera.

First of all, learn how to control your phone’s camera manually so that you can choose what part of the image you want to be in focus and what part of the image you want to drive the exposure. Nearly all modern phone’s cameras allow you to touch the screen to select where on the image you want to set the focus and exposure. In this photo of a Scottish traditional music performance, I set the focus point on the fiddler to ensure sharp focus on the musicians. Then I adjusted the exposure by moving the vertical slider upward, in order to add some brightness to the image and avoid underexposing the backlit performers.

Touch your smartphone camera’s screen to select the focus point, and then move the exposure slider up or down to adjust the exposure separately from the focus point. Buy this photo on my website

Better yet, take full manual control over your phone’s camera by installing an app. There are good free and inexpensive apps for both iOS and Android. The one I use for iOS is called “Manual” and is available on the Apple App Store: Manual app. With such an app installed on your camera, you can specify manually exactly what settings you want to use for the focus point, aperture, shutter speed, ISO, flash, etc. This level of control was essential for a shot like the one below. The tossin’ of the caber, a “heavy athletics” event in which the contestants throw a 75-pound tree trunk as far as possible, requires a fast shutter speed in order to freeze the rapid action.

Using the “Manual” app I was able to focus on the athlete and choose a fast shutter speed to freeze the rapidly moving caber. Buy this photo on my website

To capture this action shot of an indoor sheepdog trial, I had to set a fast shutter speed and increase the camera sensor’s sensitivity (ISO) to accommodate the quick action and the low-light setting. Again, the Manual app allowed for this flexibility. I also cropped the image during post-processing because the phone’s camera does not have a long enough focal length lens to zoom in closely on the subject.

Both manual selection of the ISO and shutter speed and cropping during post-processing are required to get a decent shot of action like this sheepdog trial. Buy this photo on my website

To capture this image of a girl teaching young children how to dance around the maypole, I had to use all the elements we’ve been discussing here. I used manual settings to choose a focus and exposure that were correct for this subject, forced the camera’s flash to fire to try to even out the harsh shadows across the girl’s face, and employed cropping and lighting adjustments during post-processing to achieve a pleasing composition.

Bringing it all together: To make this image of the maypole celebration, I manually selected the focus, exposure, and flash, and then cropped and adjusted exposure during post-processing. Buy this photo on my website

Next time you can’t or just don’t have the best equipment with you, use the tips we’ve covered here to make the best of a challenging situation.

When did you have to make do with less than ideal gear for a shoot? How did you make the best of it? Do you have tips or tricks you can add? Please contribute your thoughts using the comment box at the end of this post.

Want to read more post about photographic gear? Find them all here: Posts on Gear

To Travel Hopefully is Taking the Day Off: Please browse the archived posts you may not yet have read

Dear Reader,

To Travel Hopefully is taking the day off, but don’t worry, we’ll be back with fresh new content tomorrow. In the meantime, please take a look at the helpful travel photography tips and inspiring images in our archived posts. Just select a category (Destinations, Gear, Techniques, Travel, etc.) from the right nav bar, or choose a month under Archives, and browse to your heart’s content. Thank you for visiting To Travel Hopefully!

Warm regards,

Kyle Adler

Hiking in Southwestern Ireland: How to capture glorious landscapes along the trails

The central portion of our recent trip through Ireland and Scotland was a week of hiking in the southwest of Ireland. While we hiked independently, the logistics were arranged for us by a travel company called Country Walkers (http://www.countrywalkers.com/). With its richly verdant and rugged terrain, glorious views to the sea and mountains, historic and cultural points of interest, and warm and welcoming people, this region is supremely rewarding for the travel photographer.

I highly recommend a visit to the very remote Gougane Barra peninsula. There’s only one hotel, which offers outstanding food and views over a tiny island with a picturesque church and the ruins of a sixth century monastery. A photographer’s paradise!

St. Finbarr’s Church stands on a tiny island on the Gougane Barra Peninsula. To make this image, I shot in the early morning when the quality of light was compelling, got down low to include the rushes in the lake, and used a polarizing filter to bring out the textures in the water and sky. Buy this photo

Don’t put away your gear when the sun sets! On a rare clear night in rural Ireland, the photography is stunning. Here’s an image of the Milky Way sprawling above the ruins of St. Finbarr’s Abbey, a sixth century monastery.

To capture the Milky Way, use a sturdy tripod and a relatively fast lens with a high ISO setting. In most cases, a shutter speed of 20-25 seconds is best, but here I used a somewhat shorter exposure to avoid having the cross appear washed out in the site’s artificial light. Buy this photo

We then hiked a segment of the long-distance Sheep’s Head Way. You’ll rarely encounter completely clear skies while walking in Ireland, but the changeable conditions can create opportunities for glorious landscapes. This lovely image was made just as the rain let up and the sun poked out, generating a vivid rainbow that spanned over the green fields and ancient walls.

Here I used my go-to landscape lens, the Nikon 16-35mm f/4 lens, fitted with a good circular polarizing filter. I adjusted the angle of the polarizer carefully to enhance the sky without weakening the refraction of the rainbow. I got down low to the ground to include the leading line from the old wall. Other compositional elements include the sheep and the dramatic clouds. Buy this photo

Ladder stiles are encountered frequently when hiking in this region, but are less familiar back home, so dramatic images can be made incorporating travel companions crossing fences using these ladders. Here I used a wide-angle lens with polarizing filter to emphasize the expansive terrain and dramatic sky. Buy this photo

At the end of the Sheep’s Head Way sits the lovely Bantry House, owned by the same family since 1750. Climb the hill behind the house to capture the house and its gardens with the harbor behind. Buy this photo

On our way to the start of our next day’s hike in Killarney National Park, we stopped at a viewpoint called Priest’s Leap for this lovely view. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: remember to include yourself and your travel companions in some of your images. Set up the camera and either mount it on a tripod or show another person how to release the shutter. For more on how to make images including yourself, read this post: Post on Including Yourself

This image at Priest’s Leap was made using a normal lens with polarizing filter, stopped down to maximize depth-of-field. Buy this photo

Ireland is filled with forests that are shrouded in mystery and magic. Look for the little things as you walk: a flower or shamrock, a moss-covered tree, a tiny stream. All that rain has the happy side-effect of making Ireland the greenest place I’ve ever seen.

Slow down and seek out the little natural details around you, like this moss-covered tree in Killarney National Park. Buy this photo

The lovely Torc Waterfall within Killarney National Park is one of the most scenic in the region. To capture the motion of the water, I used a neutral density filter to allow a long shutter speed and steadied the camera on a solid tripod. Buy this photo

The legendary Gap of Dunloe outside of Killarney stretches for eight miles through mountains and valleys, along streams and by ancient farmhouses. It can be traversed by horse-drawn carriages called “jaunting cars,” but the intrepid photographer will want to hike it instead.

The Gap of Dunloe offers compelling photographic subjects like this stream flowing in a valley surrounded by mountains. A good wide-angle lens with a polarizing filter brings out the color and texture in such a landscape, even on a “soft day” like this one. Buy this photo

Hiking isn’t the only great way to see the local landscapes. After hiking the Gap of Dunloe, take a boat ride along the rivers and lakes to the ancient Ross Castle.

This mountain rising from the lake was captured during the boat ride back from the Gap hike, using a normal lens with polarizing filter. Buy this photo

We spent every evening in Ireland visiting a pub or two. These pubs differ in character, but all reflect the generous and friendly local culture, and many offer live music.

At a pub in Killarney, I was chatting with this fiddler during a break between sets and made this portrait using natural light with a fast portrait lens, a wide aperture, and a high ISO. Buy this photo

My essential portrait lens:

We were fortunate to stay two nights in Killarney at the wonderful Lake Hotel. The hotel grounds include the ruins of an ancient castle situated on a lake with mountains behind. During breakfast on our second morning, I noticed the cloud cover had lifted but there was still mist hanging on the side of the hills around the lake. I ran up to our room, grabbed my thirty pounds of camera gear, and rushed outside to capture the ruins with the mist enshrouding the lake and mountains.

There was no time to set up a tripod as the warming sun was burning away the magical mist on the lake, so I shot this image handheld. Buy this photo

Our final day’s hike was the beautiful Wild Atlantic Way from Ventry to Dunquin. The lovely views of the Atlantic are punctuated with green fields dotted with odd “beehive huts,” some dating back to the Neolithic Period.
To make this landscape incorporating ancient stone beehive huts and walls, I shot down across the fields to the sea, being sure to keep the horizon level. Buy this photo

The picturesque Blasket Islands were home to a community of Irish-speaking farmer-fishermen until they were forced to evacuate in 1953. This is one of Ireland’s most gorgeous stretches of coastline, captured here using a wide-angle lens with polarizer. Rotate the filter until the sky is dark and dramatic. Buy this photo

I hope this post inspires you to hike and photograph in this gorgeous region. Expect some wet weather nearly every day, and prepare accordingly to protect yourself and your camera gear. You’ll be richly rewarded with expansive views of some of the world’s greenest and loveliest vistas!

Have you visited southwestern Ireland? What were your most memorable experiences? Please share your thoughts here.

Want to see posts on other travel photography destinations? Find them all here: Posts on Destinations.

The Camera Eats First [Encore Publication]: How to make delicious images of local food specialties

A big part of the joy of travel is learning about the local food and drink. For the travel photographer, local culinary specialties represent a cornucopia of image possibilities. In this post, we’ll look at some food images and discuss a few tips and tricks to make delectable photos of the victuals we meet while traveling. Warning: Do not read this post while hungry.

When photographing plated food, it’s best to get in close. Shoot straight down or at a slightly oblique angle, and always check your background to ensure it is as uncluttered as possible. Be aware of your focal point and depth of field (how much of the image is in focus) so that the most important part(s) of your image are sharp.

For this photo of a cheese plate in Burgundy, France, I got in close to the subject and chose a small aperture to ensure all the different cheeses were sharply in focus. Buy this photo

Don’t forget that specialty drinks are also a big part of local culture. For example, in Argentina the deep love of mate (pronounced MAH-tay), a local infusion, becomes almost a religious practice. This image of the mate service engages all the senses with its bright colors, contrasting textures, and suggestion of the smell and taste of the drink. To capture a sense of the Argentinian obsession with mate, I shot this image of the serving of the drink with all its components. I wanted to include some of the environment around the mate tray as well. The scene was lit with natural light, which further saturated the bright colors.

Argentina’s national obsession, mate. Buy this photo

Always be on the lookout for local dishes that are unusual or exotic to our own sensibilities. This image of the local Peruvian specialty cuy, or guinea pig, has sold well on American and European stock photography sites because the main ingredient is so unfamiliar to our palettes. I love the saturated colors and the humor inherent in the guinea pigs holding peppers in their mouths. The ocher wall makes a lovely background to offset the colors of the dish. To capture this image of Peruvian cuy served during a home-hosted lunch, I got in close as the hostess held up her dish, ensuring that the ocher wall behind was all that was visible in the background. I chose a wide aperture to slightly blur one of the guinea pigs and the wall. I used natural lighting with just a kiss of off-camera flash to accentuate the highlights.

Cuy (guinea pig) is a Peruvian delicacy. Buy this photo

Sometimes it is the ingredients rather than the final dish that are most interesting. While on a shore excursion on the Greek island of Rhodes, my family saw these beautiful octopuses hanging to dry in the sun. After photographing them, we ordered a plate of grilled octopus. We very nearly missed the sailing of our ship, as the taverna’s cook took her time to grill the dish, but it was absolutely worth it!

Obviously, natural light was the way to go with this image. I wanted to get in close, but not too tight, so that the lovely Rhodes scenery would be partly visible behind the drying octopus. I used a medium-wide aperture to slightly soften the background. Buy this photo

What’s even better than food images? Portraits of local people making or serving the food! Here’s a shot of a server holding up a tray of Istanbul’s best baklava. The background is a bit cluttered, but I like this image for its blending of the beautiful dessert tray with the pride of the man serving it.

Often a street vendor, cook, or restaurant server will be reluctant to have their portrait made but will be happy to pose with their wares. For this portrait of an Istanbul baklava server, I chose a wide-angle lens and got in very close to the food tray to emphasize the baklava while including the server in the composition. Just natural light and balanced fill flash were used as lighting. Buy this photo

Street markets are a wonderful source of travel images. They tend to be bright, colorful, exotic, and characteristic of the location. Be aware that some vendors will expect you to buy something if you want to photograph their wares.

I like the contrasting colors in this shot of Istanbul’s ancient Spice Market. Buy this photo

Nearly every culture around the world has its own version of barbecue, and in my broad and diverse travel experience, it’s all good. Here’s a photo of whole branzino (Mediterranean sea bass) fish being grilled topside by the captain of our small wooden sailing ship on the Turquoise Coast of Turkey. It was nearly completely dark, so I lit this image using light from the burning coals and a touch of flash. A relatively high ISO was required to balance the low natural light with the need for a small enough aperture to keep the whole subject in focus.

Whole fish on the grill aboard a gulet yacht in Turkey. Buy this photo

Sometimes a local cuisine is all about diversity, such as the Dutch-Indonesian specialty rijsttafel (rice table). Some presentations of rijsttafel in Amsterdam involve over a hundred different tiny plates, each containing a different food preparation. To capture this tapestry of tastes, I stood on the bench and shot obliquely onto the table top, including as much of the spread as I could.

Indonesian rijsttafel served in Amsterdam. Note that in restaurants at night we have little or no control over the artificial lighting, which can sometimes lead to an unnatural color cast on the food. Shoot in RAW format so you can adjust the color balance during post-processing when you get home. Buy this photo

I grew up in New England, and after traveling to more than 100 countries around the world I can say with authority that few meals can beat a good old-fashioned New England clambake with lobster. To capture this iconic image, I shot up close and directly toward the lobster, using a normal lens with a medium aperture. This allowed most of the meal to be sharply focused, but with some falloff in sharpness toward the edges in order to emphasize the Maine event. The contrasting colors between lobster, clams, and corn make for a pleasing composition.

A lobster clambake in Maine showcases the contrasting colors and textures of this delicious meal. Buy this photo

As a parting shot, I’ll leave you with this image of French haute cuisine. The gloriously prepared and plated fish course at Paul Bocuse’s three-Michelin-starred restaurant made a fun subject because it is whimsical and artistic at the same time. The available lighting was soft and subdued for artificial light, so no flash was needed. I shot some closer compositions of just the plate, but preferred this one with some of the table setting included.

Bon appétit! Buy this photo

What are your favorite food photos? Do you have tips on how to make food images really pop? Please share your comments.

Wildlife and Safari Gear: Basic equipment to capture wildlife while traveling or close to home

Wildlife photography is one of the most exciting and rewarding pursuits I know, but it is also very challenging. Whether on safari in far-flung wilderness regions around the world or in a park or zoo near home, capturing great images of the local fauna requires plenty of patience, a little bit of luck, and some specialized gear. This post outlines the basic equipment needed for wildlife photography.

Sometimes we get lucky. This alligator was seeking what little sunshine was available on an overcast winter’s day on the bayou in Louisiana. He stayed sufficiently still that I was able to capture this image by handholding a medium telephoto lens from our airboat. Buy this photo

Occasionally, a critter may scamper, fly, or swim right up to where the photographer happens to be standing, but in the vast majority of cases, if we want to capture a really moving and uninhibited portrait of an animal, we need a long telephoto lens. Working with “big glass” not only fills more of the frame with the main subject, but it has the added benefit of allowing the photographer to shoot from a vantage point far enough away from the animal so as not to frighten it. It’s also very important when photographing wildlife that we make every effort to keep the wildlife wild, and using a long lens keeps us at a sufficient distance that the creatures we’re observing are less likely to become accustomed to the sight, sound, and smell of humans.

I like to carry both a medium telephoto and a long telephoto when shooting wildlife, so as to be prepared for a variety of situations. My medium lens of choice is the Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 VR lens. While this lens is built on aging technology and doesn’t always feel as solid as more professional lenses, it is relatively small and lightweight, fairly inexpensive, and provides a very effective vibration reduction function. This lens has been a staple in my bag for many years, during which time I’ve used it to capture some of my favorite images.

My go-to long lens for wildlife photography is the Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 lens. It’s more economical than a Nikon or Canon super-tele, and it produces reasonably sharp images even when used at its widest aperture. You can spend much more on this type of big glass if you want or need to, but I’ve found this lens works quite well for me.

Lilac breasted roller captured with a 500mm lens in Tanzania’s Kilimanjaro region. Buy this photo

When shooting far-off and often rapidly moving animal subjects with big glass, it is important to have a good means of stabilizing the camera. Depending on the shooting situation, I use either a lightweight tripod or a beanbag support.

A lightweight travel tripod is perfect for those situations when you have plenty of space and plenty of time in one place. I like the Manfrotto Be Free travel tripod. It folds up to an incredibly small size yet affords a surprising amount of stability. The included ball head works well but is difficult to adjust for sensitivity. This tripod is designed to fit into a special pouch in my favorite travel photography backpack, also made by Manfrotto.

For situations when you will be on the move much of the time, such as on game drives using safari vehicles, a beanbag support is extremely useful, as you cannot fit a tripod in a safari vehicle and a monopod is awkward. The bag can be emptied for convenient travel and then filled with “beans” (usually synthetic) upon arrival. It is placed on top of the safari vehicle while shooting, with the camera and long lens resting on the beanbag. While the beanbag that I use is no longer available, this one is well reviewed by photographers and represents a good value.

A sleepy leopard yawns in a tree above the Endless Plains of Serengeti National Park. This image was captured using a 500mm lens resting on a beanbag support placed on the roof of our safari vehicle. Buy this photo

With a couple of good telephoto lenses, including one long one, and a couple of good options for stabilizing them, you will be armed with the right basic tools for bringing home truly memorable images of the wildlife you encounter on your travels. Happy hunting!

What are your favorite wildlife subjects and locations, and what gear do you use to capture them? Please share your experiences here.

Want to read more posts about photographic gear? Find them all here: Posts on Gear.

Focus on Yosemite National Park [Encore Publication]: A photographer’s dream, Yosemite offers so much more than the postcard views

Those of us who live in the San Francisco Bay Area can count many blessings, but one I am most thankful for is our fairly close proximity to Yosemite National Park. The second oldest national park in the US, Yosemite is a photographer’s dream. Since the days when Ansel Adams helped make the park famous through his masterful landscape photography, shutterbugs of all stripes have been flocking there to try to capture some of its indescribable beauty. Most of us will never be an Ansel Adams, but that doesn’t stop me from returning to Yosemite at least once per year to give it my best shot, as it were.

Without doubt, there are many iconic views in the park that are relatively easy for even novice photographers to render. There is majesty in the panorama over Yosemite Valley as seen from the famous Tunnel View lookout. One doesn’t even have to venture off the main park road to shoot a nice image of Half Dome or El Capitan. But Yosemite offers so much more to the photographer who’s willing to look a bit more closely, to hike a little instead of jumping out of a car to shoot, or to come to a spot at unusual times, including the middle of the night.

In this post, I’ll share a few images I made in Yosemite National Park over the past year, but none of them will be a postcard-type shot that you’ve seen 1000 times before. And we’ll talk a bit about how to find and capture these less discovered views.

While hiking in the Tuolumne Meadows area, 5000 feet above Yosemite Valley, we were caught in a freak hailstorm at the remote Dog Lake. Instead of throwing a rain cover over my gear and running for shelter like a normal person would do, I set up my kit and started shooting. This image plays off the contrasts between the peaceful and violent sides of nature and between the light and the shade. It is a composite of several different shots made at different exposures, put together in Lightroom’s HDR (high dynamic range) merging tool.

Yosemite offers unusual and dramatic views to those willing to get away from the roads and brave some harsher conditions. Buy this photo

Another less-visited attraction in the park is the wonderful Chilnualna Falls. The lower waterfall is actually quite an easy hike from the parking area at the trailhead, and its little swimming hole makes for a refreshing break on a hot summer’s day. Here’s a shot of my younger daughter enjoying a dip in the swimming hole just under the falls. To blur the water, I used a slow shutter speed, which could only be achieved in the harsh mid-day light by attaching neutral-density filters to the lens. Neutral-density (ND) filters are an essential accessory for the landscape photographer, because they block most of the available light from reaching the camera’s sensor, allowing you to use a slower shutter speed to blur motion and/or a wider aperture to throw the background out of focus.

These reduce the amount of light that reaches the camera’s sensor, so you can use slower shutter speeds to blur motion, or so you can use a wider aperture to get a shallow depth-of-field, even in bright sunlight.

A neutral-density filter allows a nicely blurred shot of the waterfall at Chilnualna Falls. Buy this photo

Another lovely hike in the high country of Tuolumne Meadows is Cathedral Lakes. On our way back from these pristine and remote lakes, we passed this granite rock dome. I used a polarizing filter on a wide-angle lens to bring out the details on the surface of the rock and to lend more drama to the sky. Then, in post-processing, I converted the image to black-and-white to emphasize the remarkable texture of the granite slab’s surface. For more discussion about converting images to black-and-white, take a look at my earlier post: B&W Photography post.

Using a polarizing filter can darken and add drama to skies, reduce unwanted reflections, and render stunning detail on shiny surfaces. Converting an image to black-and-white can bring out the textures and patterns that may be less prominent when viewed in a color image. Buy this photo

Just because a place is glorious in its own right doesn’t mean we can’t include people in our photos. Putting humans in a landscape adds a personal touch, provides a sense of scale, and often tells a more compelling story than would an image of the same place without people. Here I’ve included my daughters in a landscape from the incomparable summit of Sentinel Dome.

Including people in landscapes layers a human narrative on top of the natural story. I like the added color, and humor, from the addition of my daughters in their college logo hats. I’ve chosen a wide aperture to soften the focus on the lovely background. Buy this photo

You don’t have to stop shooting when the sun sets. Some of the most wonderful images of Yosemite are made after dark. I came to this spot not far from the edge of the meadow in Yosemite Valley, and right on the bank of the Merced River, quite late at night when the sky was very dark. I set up my camera and wide-angle lens on a tripod and made a 25-second exposure at a high sensitivity (ISO) setting. The resulting image shows the spectacle of the Milky Way arched above the terrestrial grandeur of Half Dome and other Yosemite landforms. For more discussion of capturing the Milky Way, visit this post: Milky Way photography post.

A favorite image of mine: The Milky Way above Half Dome. Note that not every landscape image needs to be in “landscape orientation”. Buy this photo

Next time you are fortunate enough to visit Yosemite National Park, try to discover some new places, visit favorite places less visited times of the day (or night), and include some people for a human component to the story. Your images will stand out from the millions of others made in this glorious park!

Do you have a favorite photographic experience from Yosemite to share? Please leave a comment to let us know.

Want to see more posts on great travel photography destinations? See them all here: http://www.to-travel-hopefully.com/category/destinations/.

Focus on Dia de los Muertos: When a local festival takes you around the world

Sometimes you can attend a local event and feel as though you’re transported to a far-off part of the world, or even feel like you’re traveling across a wide cultural tableau of a whole region. That’s how I felt while shooting today’s Dia de los Muertas (Day of the Dead) celebrations in downtown San Jose. Although I had traveled only half an hour from my house, this festival celebrating life and honoring departed relatives took me on a cultural and historic journey across all of Latin America and beyond. In today’s post I will present a simple photo essay featuring some of my favorite images from this festival.
An Aztec dancer helps convene the day’s celebrations. Buy this photo

The Aztec fire dance’s origins date back to pre-Columbian times. Buy this photo

This shrine, erected on the back of a pickup truck, is dedicated to the memory of the owner’s deceased father and brother. Buy this photo

The “elegant skull” face painting is an element of Day of the Dead celebrations in several Latin American countries. Buy this photo

These lovely ladies awoke at 5 AM to paint their own faces and those of their family members. Buy this photo

More wonderful face art. Buy this photo

I love the cultural juxtaposition of Hello Kitty with Day of the Dead. Buy this photo

Although this portrait of a couple also worked well in color, I love the dramatic impact it makes when converted to a high-contrast black-and-white image. Buy this photo

Elegant and beautiful! Buy this photo

I hope you’ve enjoyed this brief compilation of images from today’s festival and that it inspires you to seek out Day of the Dead celebrations near your own home.

What are some of your favorite cultural traditions? Have you captured these traditions using your camera? Please share your experiences in the comments box.

Want to see other posts about what to shoot while traveling and near home? Find them all here: http://www.to-travel-hopefully.com/category/travel/shoot/

Focus on Las Migas Quartet: Indoor concerts can be challenging to shoot, but these techniques will help

Last night I had the opportunity to shoot the wonderful and vibrant flamenco quartet, Las Migas, at the venerable Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse in Berkeley. Las Migas is a Barcelona-based band comprised of four young women from different regions of Spain who came together over their love for traditional and modern flamenco music and dance. They’re in the middle of their first US tour, and being a lover of flamenco, I made sure to attend their only SF Bay Area concert.

Shooting from the audience in a crowded hall with dim lighting is a challenge. To make this image of all the members of Las Migas together, I used a fast normal lens nearly wide open with a high ISO setting in order to allow a reasonably fast shutter speed. Buy this photo

Shooting indoor concerts near home and while traveling is a special joy of mine, but it poses some very real technical challenges. Today’s post offers a host of tips and tricks to help you get the best images possible under these challenging conditions.

Planning: Before you arrive at the concert venue, learn as much as you can about the performers and the space. What are the policies of both the performers and the venue regarding photography? Sometimes one or both of these entities may not allow photography at all, but other times discreet photography is welcome. Of course, flash photography ordinarily will not be allowed, as it disrupts both performers and audience. What is the layout of the venue? How many performers will be on stage and in what configuration? Can you shoot from your seat, from a special area designated for photography/video, or from some other location (a balcony, for example)? Where should you sit to get the best images without bothering other patrons or the musicians? For this particular concert, I knew the venue’s policy was to defer to the wishes of the performers. Upon arrival (and you should always arrive early), I spoke with the house manager to confirm their policy, and she introduced me to the band. I learned that Las Migas were eager to have some professional-quality images made at this event. The next order of business was determining where to shoot from. Because the hall was fairly crowded, and there was no designated photography area, I chose a seat in the center of the second row, close enough to get some close-up shots of the musicians but without disturbing them or the other audience members.
Gear: A concert is not usually the time to bring a lot of bulky kit. Think “light and mobile.” Remember that even after securing permission to shoot the event, you still want to remain inconspicuous. Tripods and monopods are not suitable for most concerts, and flash is out of the question. A fast telephoto can be useful if you are far away from the stage, but it’s hard to handhold a long lens in low lighting conditions. For the Las Migas concert, I brought only the camera body with two small fast prime lenses, a 50mm “normal” lens and an 85mm portrait lens.
Shot List: What shots are on your or your client’s must-capture list? Do you or they want close-ups of the individual band members, small group shots of two or three musicians interacting, shots of the full band, and/or panoramic views that include the audience? For this concert, I wanted to capture a mix of close-ups, small group shots, and full band images.
Shooting: The Golden Rule of concert photography is to be courteous and not to disrupt the event. Since lighting levels are often very dim at concerts, and because the use of flash is out of the question, it is important to have a fast lens or two and to use a high ISO setting on the camera. Vibration reduction in the lens or camera body can be helpful to avoid camera shake, but because musicians and dancers are usually moving rather quickly, the bigger problem is subject motion blur. For this reason, I used fast prime lenses (f/1.4 and f/1.8, respectively) and ISO settings ranging from 1200 to 3200. To avoid disrupting the musicians or other audience members, I used the quiet setting on my camera’s shutter and turned off the LCD display on the back of the camera. There is always the opportunity to take a quick peek at your images during downtime between songs. I try to compose and shoot through the gaps between the audience members in front of me, but sometimes the seating configuration will limit the workable shooting options. There can be times, such as when the audience gets up to dance or during standing ovations at the end of a set, when it’s okay to stand up for a moment to shoot a few quick images, but in general I try not to stand out from any other audience members.
Post-processing: There are three special challenges in concert photography that can be addressed, to a certain degree, during post-processing of your images. First, there’s color balance. The lighting in many concert halls imparts a strange color cast on the musicians. To fix this, I adjust the white balance in Lightroom until the subject appears as natural as possible. Obviously, it is important to shoot in RAW format so that white balance can be adjusted later. Even after adjusting during post-processing, there will often be mixed lighting or very strangely colored parts of the image that cannot be made to look fully natural. Accept this as an occupational hazard. Second, there’s the issue of noise in the images. Because high ISO settings are usually required to achieve motion-freezing shutter speeds under dim lighting conditions, noise reduction must be performed in post-processing. I find that with my camera (a Nikon D810) and with Lightroom’s noise reduction capabilities, I can usually shoot at ISO settings up to 3200 and sometimes even higher before noise because unmanageable. Your mileage may vary. And third, there’s often a need to crop the image in order to yield the most powerful composition. In general I like to compose my images in the camera and leave cropping to a minimum, but at most indoor concerts the restrictions on shooting location and the need for fast prime lenses mean that cropping will often be necessary during post-processing.
Sharing: Always honor the policies and requests of the venue and the band before sharing or selling your images. While the specifics vary according to the event, in most cases I will offer the band and/or the venue a license to use a few of my images free of charge for their publicity or communications, with the condition that they credit me as the photographer wherever the images appear. That way, the band is usually happy for the free use of the images, and I get free word-of-mouth and perhaps sell some prints to the band’s fans. It’s a win-win.

Part of the fun of shooting a concert is capturing the interaction between two or more of the performers. I used a normal lens shooting slightly upwards from my seat to make this image of violinist and guitarist playing together. Buy this photo

To make portraits of the individual performers on stage, I like to use a fast prime portrait lens. Cropping can be performed during post-processing to yield the most effective composition. Buy this photo

Shooting live music and dance performances is challenging but is also a real treat. I hope the techniques outlined in this post will help you with your own concert photography.

Have you photographed memorable concerts? What tips and tricks do you use to get the best images? Please share your thoughts in the comment box here.

Want to read more posts about photographic techniques? Find them all here: http://www.to-travel-hopefully.com/category/techniques/.

Happiness Quite Unshared [Encore Publication]: Top ten ways to share your images

With the holidays approaching, I thought readers of To Travel Hopefully might enjoy seeing an encore of this early, pre-launch post with ideas about how to share your favorite images with friends and family.

Sometimes you just get that feeling. You know as soon as you depress the shutter button that you’ve just captured an incredible travel image. Over the course of your trip, you will hopefully amass quite a few of these images that you will be eager to share with friends and family. After the often laborious effort to cull your images and post-process the chosen few, it’s time to share these best photos with the world.

In olden times (pre-digital), there were fewer choices about how to share one’s travel photos. Many of us shot with color transparency (slide) film, sent all the rolls off to a lab for processing, picked out the top slides by hand, and stored them in a slide tray or carousel for future viewing. In the excitement just after a trip, we would likely invite a bunch of friends over, get them slightly inebriated, and subject them to a slide show using a projector and portable screen. This almost literally captive audience would feign enjoyment over, or perhaps even genuinely enjoy, viewing the large projected images and hearing our stories about the recent adventure. Then the guests would leave, and the slide trays would go back on a bookshelf to sit for months or years before anyone would look again.

In this brave new digital era, we have many more and better options for sharing our best travel photos. This being the Internet, I’ll offer up a Top Ten list of favorite ways to get my travel images in front of key audiences (Number 7 will amaze you!):

Social Media: While most social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, are image-intensive, it turns out that they aren’t particularly good at sharing fine art photography. That said, these are important and obvious outlets for getting our favorite travel photos out to our friends promptly. Some even post while traveling, but I do not recommend this approach unless you are completely certain your home is secure while you’re away. Because these platforms encourage sharing, using them will allow your friends to pass them along to their friends, too.
Online Photography Sites: Specialized photography platforms, such as SmugMug, Flickr, PhotoShelter, and 500px, are tailor-made for sharing (and even selling) your best images. I use SmugMug to power my own professional photography website, but I also spend quite a bit of time browsing friends’ and even strangers’ photo galleries on the other platforms I mention here.
The New Home Slideshow: Who needs the clunky white folding screens and finicky slide projectors of yesteryear? Today most folks have a bright, high-definition display right in their living rooms, and it’s called a TV. Photos on a PC or tablet can easily be shared on a smart TV via WiFi or specialized connecting cables.
Your Phone: Today’s smart phones, whether iOS or Android, have easy ways to sync photos from your PC or tablet to the phone. Once on your phone, your photos are ready to show to anyone from your mom to a random stranger on a train. Not the biggest screen in the world, but it’s always with you and can store thousands of high resolution photos.
Send them the files: It’s sometimes desirable to send some of your original image files to a few trusted friends. Among the numerous methods for doing so are good ol’ trusty email (though attachment sizes are usually limited), Dropbox, and the download capability found in certain photography sites such as SmugMug.
Albums and Books: Yes, the photo album is still alive and well, and it’s never been easier to create one. Or you can go the extra mile and publish your own custom photography book. Many photo sharing sites allow you to create your own albums and books featuring your images.
Prints: The demise of the hardcopy print has been greatly exaggerated. There’s something special and timeless about the look and feel of a well-printed photograph on real paper. Do it yourself on a good home printer with high quality paper and ink, or send it to a professional lab, but a framed print on your wall or gifted to a friend to put up on their wall is a lovely way to share your very best images.
Cards: Greeting cards, birthday cards, holiday cards–these days it’s easy to customize them with your own images and send them to friends and family.
Calendars: Every year, I create a calendar with a photo from each month of the year just ended, and send copies to a few family members. I also proudly display this calendar in my home and office. What could be better than knowing you and your friends are viewing your photos every day of the year?
Keepsakes: Novelty gifts from pencil holders to jigsaw puzzles, to clothing items can be easily and inexpensively made using your favorite photos. We even have a cat food bowl sporting the likeness of our kitty. My younger daughter enjoys specialty socks, so I’m looking into ways of putting some of our images onto hosiery. Get creative!

Whatever methods you use to share your images with friends and family, I would encourage you to consider watermarking your photos. A watermark is a pattern or image placed across a portion of the photograph to identify it as the work of a particular photographer. While watermarks can be distracting to the viewer, they can be made quite discreet and they offer some protection against your image being stolen and passed off or even sold as the work of others. Many photo editing software packages and photo sharing sites offer the capability of attaching watermarks to your photos.

How do you share your travel images? Got a great idea for sharing that you’d like to add to the discussion? Please leave a comment in the box at the end of this post.

Update–Google Trips now available: A new app for your smartphone can help plan and manage your next trip

Three weeks ago, I published a post alerting readers to the availability of a new smartphone app from Google that claimed to simplify the planning and management of travel. I am republishing that post here, with an update now that I have tested the app in the field.

Product Update:

I tested Google Trips in the field during a recent two-week trip through Ireland and Scotland. Overall, the app was pretty good at pointing out local (or sometimes not so local) attractions, but it fell short of meeting its most important promise, namely the ability to navigate around an area using downloaded map data with no need to access cellular data.

I had pretty good luck researching nearby attractions in most of the regions we visited, even when my phone’s cellular data roaming capability was turned off. This feature worked more or less as advertised, and in some respects replaced my old-fashioned hardcopy guidebook. However, when I tried to use the offline navigation feature to find my way from one attraction to another, the app did not deliver on its promise. In most cases, Google Trips told me that the offline maps were not available for the applicable region, even though I had downloaded the relevant map data before leaving home for the trip. This was disappointing and represents a serious shortcoming with the app.

From my limited experience using Google Trips during our recent travels, I can recommend the app as a planning and organizational tool prior to traveling, and as a reasonable source of offline data for what to do in each area during travel. However, I cannot recommend Google Trips as a navigational aid during travel because its offline navigation feature does not seem to work reliably. Hopefully these capabilities will improve as the app matures. I will provide future updates as I further test the product.

Once again, please note that there are significant privacy concerns with this app. You should learn about what data Google collects and how they intend to use it before agreeing to install and use this app.

My original post appears below in its entirety:

As I write this post, Google has just announced a new smartphone app (for iOS and Android) that claims to simplify the planning and management of travel. Called Google Trips, the new tool appears to have some useful capabilities for many travelers, including travel photographers. I’ve had a chance to download this free app and play around with it a little bit. Here’s what I found:

It’s handy to be able to consolidate all of your reservation info in one place. When I travel, I typically enter every flight, ground transportation segment, hotel, meal, and event as separate items in my phone’s calendar app. I link the email messages containing each item’s confirmation info to that item. This allows me to access all of my reservation info in one place, but to set it all up requires quite a lot of time and effort. With Google Trips, you have the option of handling this consolidation in a simpler fashion. I was not able to try this out, though, because it seems only to work for reservations made using gmail accounts, and I am not a gmail user.
The local content is helpful to have in your pocket. The only reason I still carry a small hardcopy guidebook on many of my trips is for quick and convenient access to information on local attractions, restaurants, and nightlife. With Google Trips, this may no longer be necessary. I looked at the content for two cities I plan to visit in Ireland, Dublin and Dingle. For a large city like Dublin, the app seems to have hundreds of local listings, and a cursory glance confirms they appear to be fairly accurate. However, for smaller towns like Dingle, most of the listings seem not to be local at all, but an assortment of attractions culled from the surrounding region. One would expect the coverage to get better over time.
Far and away the best feature is the capability to download content. My international data plan, probably like yours, costs an arm and a leg, so when I travel I must turn off cellular data roaming on my phone and use it sparingly to avoid massive overage charges. In one day of using the phone as a navigation tool to stroll around London, I incurred $50 of data charges. Google Trips has the capability of downloading directly to your phone all of the maps and content about local attractions for your whole trip, which means it is always available even when there is no cellular data signal, and it won’t eat up your international data allowance. I haven’t had a chance to test this feature in the field, but plan to do so on my next international trip.

In a single day of using my phone to navigate on a family trip in London, I incurred $50 in data surcharges. Google Trips’s offline data feature could save a bundle in these situations. Buy this photo

I like the ability to find out what is open nearby and to plan an itinerary to see all the attractions I want in a customized fashion. Just as a good guidebook can suggest an itinerary in a given location for one day, three days, or longer, so can Google Trips recommend top local sights to fit into the time you have available. The difference is that this app can customize your itinerary to include just the sights you’re interested in, and can provide directions from each location to the next.
Be careful about privacy if you choose to use this app. I have concerns about what data Google says it may collect and how it may use this data. I recommend you read their privacy policy carefully and make your own informed decision about whether to use this app.

You can learn more about the app right from the Google horse’s mouth here: https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2016/09/see-more-plan-less-try-google-trips.html.

Note that I don’t specifically endorse this app or Google products or services in general, nor have I had a chance to use this app in the field. I am providing this information to my readers in the hope that it may be of interest to some. There also appear to be some privacy concerns in this and other Google apps, so be sure to research what data will be collected and how it will be used before deciding whether to use this service.

Have you tried out Google Trips? What do you think? How does it work in the field while you’re traveling? Please share your thoughts here.

When Someone Shows You Who They Are [Encore Publication]: How to make great portraits while traveling or near home

“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” ~Maya Angelou

I have long believed that travel equates to growth; that we cannot know our place in the world until we have experienced the lives of people in many different places. Of all the joys of travel photography, to me the greatest is having the chance to meet people from very different backgrounds, to get to know them for a few minutes or for much longer, and to collaborate with them to make memorable images.

A recurring theme in this forum will be how to use our cameras as a bridge to learn about and to share insights into other cultures. But the emphasis of this particular post is on the technical elements of creating portraits. These techniques apply as well to shooting portraits across the street from our home as to making great people images halfway around the world.

Most portraits that we see published in magazines or photography books were made in the studio, where the photographer has complete control over the lighting and background, and often is working with a professional model. But when we’re traveling, there’s often only a moment after getting to know a person and receiving their permission to photograph them, during which to set up our gear and shoot. We have to live with whatever lighting is available and often must make do with a cluttered background. To make this portrait of a woman enjoying a coffee break at a carpet-weaving collective in Turkey, I wanted to give the image a soft, flattering look and to bring out the rich, saturated colors of her clothing. I chose a smaller than usual aperture to provide greater depth-of-field, so that the old house itself became part of the environment. To accommodate the soft and dim natural indoor lighting, I used a higher ISO setting and a slower shutter speed.

This portrait set in a weaving collective in Turkey evokes a sense of place and a mood of quiet repose. Buy this photo

While trekking in Nepal, we stopped to rest at a teahouse where these two sisters were also taking a break along their journey. I wished them “Namaste,” or well wishes, and they responded with a traditional hand gesture of greeting. This image was made long before the digital era on a film camera with a normal lens and natural lighting only (had I had a flash unit handy, it would have helped to bring out the girls’ hair against the dark background). I love the warmth of the girls’ expressions and the simple but bright colors of their dresses set off against the black background of the teahouse’s interior.

A friendly welcome from these two young sisters at a rural teahouse in Nepal. Buy this photo

Sometimes we want to tell the viewer more about our subject than what is possible in a simple close-up portrait. An environmental portrait allows us to include more than just the subject by zooming out and bringing in other elements. I photographed this maker of traditional Turkish instruments in his workshop while he tested a nearly-completed Bağlama, surrounded by other partially made instruments. To my eye, the resulting portrait is more compelling than a close-up because it shows the subject in his environment. To make this portrait, I used a wider focal-length and a narrower aperture so as to have more of the environmental elements in the frame and in focus.

An environmental portrait of a maker of traditional Turkish musical instruments. Buy this photo

A portrait doesn’t have to portray a stock-still person posing for the camera. Some of my favorite portraits evoke a strong sense of motion. I made this portrait of a samba dancer during the Carnaval San Francisco annual parade by getting in close and shooting with a medium-length telephoto lens set to a small aperture to soften the background. I used a fast shutter speed to freeze the action (although sometimes a slower shutter speed can be used to create a nice blurred effect). In post-processing, I cropped the image to further isolate the dancer and emphasize the grace of the motion.

This dancer in a Brazilian Samba krewe was captured in a tight composition that was further cropped in post-processing to give a strong sense of motion. Buy this photo

Keep an eye on the total composition when framing a portrait. It’s more than just a matter of framing the subject within the image: other considerations include the background and the overall flow of the viewer’s eye across the image. In this portrait of the proprietor of Maria’s Cafe in rural Cuba, I composed the image to use the brightly colored door, balcony, staircase, and tree to frame the subject herself.

Composing a portrait involves thinking about the background and the viewer’s overall experience in looking across the image. Buy this photo

A really good portrait should tell a story about the subject. Here, Cuban tobacco farmer Benito relaxes in his drying barn with a cigar he just rolled from his tobacco harvest. I got in close and used the natural light of his cigar lighter and the diffused sunlight within the barn, with no flash added.

This portrait of a Cuban tobacco farmer tells a story about who he is and what he does. Buy this photo

Consider the angle from which you shoot a portrait, as it has a strong influence on the emotional response of the viewer. Most of the time we want to shoot a head shot or head-and-shoulders shot from a height midway between the top and bottom of the image, but to make this portrait of sisters on the outskirts of Arusha, Tanzania, I chose to shoot from slightly above. It’s a fine line between giving a sense of vulnerability and causing the image to seem condescending, but I like this photo in part because I feel the unusual vantage point evokes a strong sense of emotion.

An unusual shooting angle can enhance a portrait, but be careful not to overdo this effect. Buy this photo

Another rule meant to be broken is freezing the action of a portrait’s subject. During a fitness photoshoot with my friend Crystal, I shot mostly with a fast shutter speed to freeze her while she worked out. But for this image, we wanted a blurred effect to create a sense of her forward motion while running, so I used a slower shutter speed.

A slower shutter speed can be used to give more sense of motion to a rapidly moving subject. Buy this photo

Sometimes a perspective change can work wonders for a portrait. In this image of the chief of a remote village in Swaziland, I got down low and shot with a wide-angle lens to portray her in the context of the hut behind her and the gourds she holds in her hands. A wide view in a portrait can lead to less-flattering likenesses, so this effect should be used sparingly.

A wide-angle lens and unusual perspective shooting from low to the ground lend this portrait of a Swaziland village leader a sense of connection to the place. Buy this photo

A note on gear: My go-to portrait lens is the Nikon 85mm f/1.8G lens. This is a classic portrait lens and provides a flattering perspective and great image quality when your subject is a human. I use it for nearly all of my portrait work these days. But this lens also shines for nature and action photography where you don’t need a really long focal length. It renders really lovely “bokeh,” or the soft quality of the out-of-focus parts of the image.

Which of your portraits do you find most memorable, and why? How did you create them? Please share your thoughts here.

Please read this post for my essential tips on how to photograph people while traveling: Post on Travel Portraiture.

Architecture in Ireland and Scotland: Dating from the Neolithic to today, Ireland has remarkable buildings; here’s how to capture them

During our recent travels in Dublin, hiking across southwestern Ireland, and visiting Edinburgh, we encountered fascinating architecture at every turn. From ruined farmhouses to stately manor houses, and from Neolithic-era “beehive huts” made of stone to modern fishing shacks, there is a wealth of diversity in the buildings in this region. Here I present some images of the architecture we saw during our rambles, along with a few words about each.

Dublin’s Trinity College is one of the oldest universities in the world. Famous as the home of the ancient Book of Kells, the college also boasts the Long Room, quite possibly the grandest study hall in the world. This image was made with a wide-angle lens using only available light. I used a relatively high ISO setting so that I could choose a small aperture for greater depth-of-field while still using a fast enough shutter speed to handhold the camera. Buy this photo

Another perspective on the Long Room, this image captures only the upper gallery, emphasizing the repeating patterns of the ladders, arches, and shelves. During post-processing I decided to render the photo in black-and-white to bring out the texture and pattern. Buy this photo

An architectural photo doesn’t have to isolate the building from its surroundings. I combined a shot of Dublin’s famous Olympia Theatre with a street scene by framing the theater and waiting for an interesting cast of characters to walk by. Buy this photo

Dublin Castle was built during the Anglo-Norman period and has witnessed nearly the entire history of the city. It is an austere but not particularly pretty building. To capture this image I shot with a wide-angle lens and a polarizing filter to bring out the texture of the stonework and to attempt to enhance a rather undramatic grey sky. Buy this photo

The interior of Dublin Castle is prettier than its exterior. This shot was handheld, as tripods are not allowed inside. I used a fast normal lens, but even with a high ISO setting the light was sufficiently low that I had to use a large aperture, resulting in a shallow depth-of-field. Although the foreground objects are not in sharp focus, I think this scene works rather well to capture a sense of the place. Buy this photo

In the remote and beautiful Gougane Barra Forest Park lie the ruins of a Sixth Century abbey founded by St. Finbarr. To make this image, I shot from inside one of the cells where the monks lived, looking outward toward the ruins of the abbey walls and altar. From this perspective the viewer gets a sense of what it would have been like to live a mostly solitary and austere life here many centuries ago. Buy this photo

On the same tiny island where the ruined abbey is located on Gougane Barra, there is a more modern but quite lovely church. We spent some time getting to know the American bride and groom who were celebrating their wedding here, and I shot them in front of the little chapel looking across the lake from the mainland. Including people in the context of the building makes architectural photography more relatable and compelling. Buy this photo

Hiking along the remote Sheep’s Head Way, we came across this old farmhouse. I framed the image with an extreme wide-angle lens to lend it an interesting perspective, and I used a circular polarizing filter to saturate the colors of the building and to enhance the sky and lawn. Buy this photo

The stately Bantry House lies at the end of the Sheep’s Head Way and has been owned by the same family since 1750. This photo was made from the top of the hundred steps leading through the gardens and up a hill behind the house. It’s a lovely vantage point from which to photograph the mansion, its gardens, and the gorgeous harbor and mountains in the background. A polarizing filter was used to add drama to the sky and to saturate the colors of the water and gardens. Buy this photo

This old farmhouse is now an interpretive center and shop open to the public to give a sense of what rural Irish life was like a century ago. The front of the house is especially charming when framed to include the rustic surroundings. Buy this photo

We started our walk in Killarney National Park at the lovely Derrycunnihy Church. I framed this scene from a low angle looking slightly upward at the church and using a wide-angle lens. The perspective gives a sense of the stark isolation of the church in this very remote wilderness setting. As always when shooting upward with a wide-angle lens, one must take care not to distort the lines of the image too severely. Buy this photo

Along the Gap of Dunloe we hiked past this bucolic scene around a ruined farmhouse. I framed the image to include the horse carts and the rutted pathway. Buy this photo

The Wild Atlantic Way showcases some of the most scenic views in all of Ireland as it winds through rolling hills toward the remote Blasket Islands. Along the way the observant hiker will see dozens of strangely shaped stone enclosures called beehive huts, some of which date back to the Neolithic Period. This image was shot with a telephoto lens to highlight the beehive huts and to compress the distance between the huts and the Blasket Islands dotting the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. Buy this photo

The quaint seaside village of Dingle is chock full of charming stone houses with brightly painted doors and windows. Because it was pouring rain all day and I was recovering from an illness, I brought only my phone’s camera. Even so, I was able to make some nice images of the houses by using the Manual app to take control of the phone’s camera. Buy this photo

Edinburgh, Scotland has a tremendous variety of architecture, which could be the subject of a separate post. For today, I’ll close with this image of the ruins of the ancient abbey at Holyroodhouse at the end of the Royal Mile. I shot with a wide-angle lens using a small aperture to maximize the depth-of-field and taking care to keep the horizon level so as not to distort the lines of the archways any more than necessary. Buy this photo

For a refresher on architecture photography, check out this post: Post on Architecture Photography.

What are your favorite destinations for architecture? Please share your thoughts in the comment box.

Focus on Edinburgh: Ancient and modern, Scotland’s capital city offers great architecture, museums, and more

At the end of our two-week hiking adventure in Ireland, we added a stop in Edinburgh for a family visit. Ancient and modern at the same time, Scotland’s capital offers a wide range of experiences for the traveler, and a wide array of subjects for the travel photographer. From architecture to museums, castles to palaces, glorious views and creative contemporary cuisine, this city has become a world-class destination. Here is a brief photo essay capturing some of our experiences there.

The main attraction, dominating the city from its high central vantage point, is the ancient Edinburgh Castle. It’s an easy walk from the center of town up the hill to tour the castle. On the way up, a variety of interesting views of the castle unfold. Try different lenses and compositions to take advantage of the many moods of this place.

Edinburgh Castle towers above the city center and offers a variety of different perspectives for the photographer. Here I’ve shot from halfway up the hill using a telephoto lens and polarizing filter to isolate this one portion of the edifice and to enhance the stonework and the sky. Buy this photo

Edinburgh’s Royal Mile stretches from the Castle down to the Palace at Holyrood House. It’s easy to see this street as a shopping mall jammed with tourists, but it would be a shame to overlook the stately old architecture and the little closes (alleyways) off the main street.

To make this image along the Royal Mile, I chose an unusual perspective and used a medium telephoto lens to align the different colors, textures, and angles of the statue with the cathedral. Buy this photo

Edinburgh is changing. During several visits over the decades, I’ve heard many a bagpiper playing in the center of the city, but this is the first time I’ve met a female piper. She was happy to pose for a portrait. Buy this photo

Brightly painted façades lend a splash of color to the old stone architecture in this lovely neighborhood. Buy this photo

Scottish food has also evolved a great deal in recent years, with several restaurants serving contemporary takes on traditional Scottish dishes. Nowhere is the ambiance nicer than at the Witchery by the Castle, along the Royal Mile.

To capture the lovely interior of the Witchery, I used a fast normal lens and a high ISO setting. This scene was lit entirely by candlelight and a few sconce lights in the ceiling. Buy this photo

Revisiting Edinburgh Castle on our second day, I wanted to shoot it from a different perspective at a different time of day. During post-processing I decided that a black-and-white rendering of the image would highlight the austere tone of the castle. Buy this photo

Edinburgh has a proud literary tradition, from Burns to Scott to Stevenson. The city’s literature museum, while small, is worth a visit.

I couldn’t resist capturing this display sign in the Writers’ Museum highlighting the Stevenson quote that graces the name of this website. For more on the importance of this quote to the development of my passion for travel and photography, please see this page: About To Travel Hopefully.

At the other end of the Royal Mile from the Castle lies the Palace of Holyroodhouse. This is the Queen’s official residence when she’s in Scotland, and its tour is first-rate. While photography is not allowed inside the lovely palace, it is okay to photograph the stately and much older abbey adjacent to the palace.

Again here, I tried to seek out an unusual perspective in this shot of the abbey at Holyroodhouse. I shot upward with a wide-angle lens, using spot metering to expose for the stonework and a small aperture to provide broader depth-of-field. Buy this photo

I made this portrait of our daughter with two of her friends from university by stepping back and framing them using a medium portrait lens. I chose a medium aperture to ensure sharp focus on the subjects while also keeping the façade of the abbey reasonably sharp. Buy this photo

Behind Holyroodhouse is a hill towering above the city. A short but fairly strenuous hike leads to Arthur’s Seat at the summit. From the summit there are glorious views over the whole of the Edinburgh area. This image of the Palace at Holyroodhouse was shot from partway up the hill.

A view of Holyroodhouse from partway up the hike to Arthur’s Seat. A polarizer helped bring out the drama in the sky and the saturated green of the lawns. Buy this photo

On our final evening in Edinburgh, we dined on exquisite contemporary Scottish cuisine at the Tower Restaurant. Sitting atop the Scottish National Museum, this spot has marvelous views over the city to the castle. The view shown in this image was just as marvelous.

To photograph the beautifully plated trio of smoked Scottish salmon accompanied by a glass of old single malt whisky, I shot from above using a touch of off-camera flash to balance the ambient light of the restaurant. I used a diffuser on the flash and bounced the flash off the wall to soften its light. To learn more about food photography, check out this post: Post on Food Photography Buy this photo

Scottish traditional music is alive and well and performed almost every night at Sandy Bell’s Pub. This portrait was made using my favorite portrait lens set to a wide aperture, with a high ISO setting on the camera. The shallow depth of field throws the whistle player into soft focus, so the emphasis in the image is placed on the fiddler. Buy this photo

Have you visited Edinburgh? What are your favorite spots there? What experiences should a photographer be sure to seek out? Please leave your comments here.

Sports Roundup [Encore Publication]: How to get amazing shots at sporting events

Whether we’re traveling afar or close to home, sporting events make for exciting photography. The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat (credit: ABC’s Wide World of Sports), the heroic effort, and the little moments of humor and repose amidst the adrenaline rush of competition: all of these elements can be captured in images of athletic events.

While every sport has its own rhythm and rules, there are certain techniques that apply across a wide range of sports photography situations. Let’s take a look at a few situations and discuss how to get the best images given the inherent challenges. Note that these photos were all made during outdoor sporting events; there are special challenges with many indoor sports, such as basketball or hockey, because the action remains just as fast but there is less light to work with, and the artificial lighting can impart an unnatural color cast. But that’s a topic for a different post.

Whatever the sport, I like to shoot from different perspectives, from wide to very close. The wider views show the environment as well as the athletes, so these make good establishing shots. But often the most compelling and dramatic sports images are the tight compositions, because they portray the athletes in a very personal and relatable way.

Below are two shots of the same rowing crew during the same race at a high school regatta. The first image was composed from slightly farther away and with a less extreme focal length (300mm), so the resulting composition is more environmental. It shows not only all the rowers and the coxswain in the shell, but also the width of the river and the surrounding scenery. This shot establishes the setting and gives the big picture.
Environmental shot of a crew racing at a rowing regatta. Buy this photo

Now here’s the same crew, but captured from a closer vantage point and using a longer focal length lens (750mm). This perspective isolates the athletes from the background and shows their expressions and postures. There’s certainly more drama here, at the expense of some insight into the environment.

A tighter shot of the same crew in the same race. Buy this photo

There are exceptions, such as when you choose to blur the motion to give a sense of the athlete’s grace, but as rule you want to use a fast shutter speed to freeze the action in sports photography. Very often that means shooting at 1/1000 of a second or even faster. Choose the Shutter Priority mode on your camera to gain control over the shutter speed, and be sure to select a high enough ISO setting to allow the shutter speed you require. If your camera has different auto-focus settings, you may find it helpful to choose a single-point focus setting if you know where the action will be, or a dynamic focus setting if the location of the action changes very quickly. For this image of a professional beach volleyball tournament, I chose single-point auto-focus so I could select the exact spot where the players would be jumping. I also find the best way to capture a great image in fast-moving sports (as with wildlife photography) is to set the camera to continuous or burst mode and continue to shoot rapidly through the action. That way, you’ll have several different images to choose from, and with luck at least one will have caught that “decisive moment.”

A fast shutter speed and single-point auto-focus allow the fast action of a beach volleyball competition to be captured precisely. Buy this photo

My favorite sports images portray the human element in a very personal way. This photo from a Spartan Race (an extreme athletic event that combines long-distance running with a supersized obstacle course) captures the strength and the struggle of the athlete as he nears the end of a long race through the 100-degree California desert. Keys to success in making this image were shooting from a vantage point low to the ground, using a medium-length prime telephoto lens with a large aperture to soften the background, and waiting for just the right moment.

An endurance athlete completes an obstacle near the end of a Spartan Race. Buy this photo

The fun of shooting a sporting event doesn’t end when the competition is over. Be sure to capture the dramatic and often humorous moments during award ceremonies and downtime during and after the action.

These athletes have finished their Spartan Race and strike a humorous pose at the finish line. Buy this photo

Want to see more posts on what to shoot at home and while traveling? See them all here: http://www.to-travel-hopefully.com/category/travel/shoot/

What sports do you enjoy shooting? Do you have tips on how to get great sports images? Please leave a comment in the box after this post.

Portraits from Irish Pubs: Ireland’s trad music scene is a visual as well as an aural treat

The Republic of Ireland has undergone tremendous social and financial changes over the last 20 years. It’s now indisputably a modern global society with a strong diversified economic engine. Yet it’s also a happy truth that today, as in days of old, the pub remains at the center of Irish social life. Far more than a simple watering hole, the local Irish pub, whether in the center of cosmopolitan Dublin or in a tiny coastal fishing village, is a gathering place where stories are shared, traditional music is played, old friends catch up, and new friends are made. Oh, and a pint or two might just be downed.

Many pubs feature live traditional, or “trad,” music on a nightly basis. The casual informality of Ireland’s pub scene allows local amateur musicians to sit in with seasoned pros and pass down the songs from old to young. Members of the “audience” (it’s hard to distinguish between performers and audience when the sessions are so participatory) are invited to step up to the “stage” (usually just a table covered with pints of beer) to sing a song at any time. This informality allows the travel photographer to get to know these wonderful musicians over a few pints and to make authentic portraits without feeling like we’re intruding.

Today’s post is a simple photo essay featuring portraits I made of musicians and fellow customers at a variety of pubs across Ireland (plus one in Scotland). I will forgo the usual technical details except to remind you that when shooting portraits in low-light settings where the use of flash is impossible, that a good fast portrait lens should be used along with a high ISO setting.

My current favorite lens of all is my Nikon 85mm f/1.8G lens. This is a classic portrait lens and provides a flattering perspective and great image quality when your subject is a human being. I use it for nearly all of my portrait work these days. But this lens also shines for nature and action photography where you don’t need a really long focal length. It renders really lovely “bokeh,” or the soft quality of the out-of-focus parts of the image.

This young singer and fiddler who we met at Dublin’s famous O’Donoghue’s Pub was already a seasoned pro. In this portrait I sought to capture her expressiveness with hand gestures. Even without hearing her sing, the viewer can tell that she is expert at weaving stories. Buy this photo

O’Donoghue’s is widely known as the spot where bands such as the Dubliners sparked the Irish folk music revival in the 1960s. This band carries on the tradition, sharing songs old and new. With a wide aperture comes shallow depth-of-field, so when photographing several people at one time you may have to choose which part of the image will be in focus. Here I wanted to place the emphasis on the guitarist, so the other players are in softer focus. Buy this photo

Another of Dublin’s great spots for trad music is the Cobblestone Pub. On this night they were holding a very casual session, where all musicians were invited to come and play some tunes together. The informality gave me a chance to get to know most of the players over the course of the evening and to make portraits without feeling like an intruder. Again, the shallow depth-of-field required artistic choices about which subject would be in sharp focus and which would be in softer focus. Buy this photo

In lively Kenmare, we wandered into a pub where a fabulous folksinger was performing many of the Irish songs I remember from childhood in Boston. I chatted with Pat during his set breaks and bought a couple of his CDs. He was a great subject for some expressive portraits, too. Buy this photo

We didn’t have to leave our hotel on our first night in Killarney to hear some wonderful trad music. This trio played many of our favorite songs right in the hotel’s pub, and they got most of the audience up to sing and dance along. Buy this photo

Surprisingly, we heard only one rendition of Cockles and Mussels (aka “Sweet Molly Malone”) during our whole stay in Ireland. This brave soul stood up in front of the crowd to sing that old standard. Buy this photo

There’s nothing like watching an Irish crowd respond to the playing and singing of “The Wild Rover” to get one’s blood pumping. Be ready to capture action in the “audience” as well as on the “stage.” Buy this photo

Our second night in Killarney brought us into the center of town to an old and lively pub. The table next to ours had four generations of a local family in attendance, each enjoying the musical set in their own way. The oldest generation was my favorite. Buy this photo

I got to know this fiddler over the course of the evening in Killarney. During the break between sets she was kind enough to let me make her portrait. It can be difficult in these crowded settings to avoid a cluttered background, but using a wide aperture for a shallow depth-of-field can help, as can careful post-processing. Buy this photo

Elements I look for when making a portrait are faces with character and colorful details. I found both with this accordion player and his beautiful instrument. Buy this photo

The tiny fishing hamlet of Dingle has a population of just 1900 people, yet it somehow supports 52 lively pubs. My kind of town! Over pints of ale and shots of local whiskey in this colorful old pub, we made new friends from across the street and from as far away as Newfoundland. This portrait of a musician was made almost entirely with light from the fireplace. Buy this photo

The Scottish traditional music scene is as vibrant as Ireland’s, as evidenced by this band we heard at Edinburgh’s Sandy Bell’s Pub. This place was bustling and extremely crowded. The cluttered background somehow doesn’t detract too much from the power of this portrait. Buy this photo

Have you traveled in Ireland or Scotland? Do you have favorite portraits of the generous and friendly people you encountered there? Please share your thoughts in the comment box.

Focus on Dublin: Ireland’s main city overflows with Guinness, literature, history, and music

We began our rambles through Ireland and Scotland with a whirlwind two-day stay in Dublin. The capital of the Republic of Ireland, Dublin is well known as the home of Guinness beer and for its literary and historical legacy, but perhaps less known as a remarkable hub of live music and contemporary fine dining. It’s also a marvelous place to make images that highlight the old and the new elements of this vibrant city. Here’s a brief photo essay along with some discussion of how the images were made.

Perhaps the world’s grandest study hall, Trinity College’s Long Room is a stately palace to higher learning. Located next to the vault housing the famous Book of Kells (where photography is not permitted), the Long Room is best photographed with a wide-angle lens using natural light. Here I shot from one end of the hall looking up at the ceiling and upper gallery. Be careful to watch your horizons when making an architectural image from such an angle. Buy this photo

Live trad (traditional Irish folk) music is a staple of Dublin nightlife, and nowhere is it better than at the famed O’Donoghue Pub, where in the 1960’s bands such as the Dubliners sparked the Irish folks music revival. Irish pubs are convivial and interactive places, where you can mingle with the performers and other locals.

To make portraits of the musicians, sit close to the “stage” (there’s rarely a true stage in the formal sense, but rather a performer’s area) and shoot with a fast normal or portrait lens using a high ISO setting. It helps to get to know a few of the players during their breaks. Buy this photo

Dublin is a world-class literary city, with ties to James Joyce, W. B. Yeats, Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, G. B. Shaw, Samuel Beckett, and Seamus Heaney, among many other literary greats. We took, and highly recommend, a literary walking tour led by scholar, author, and actor Colm Quilligan. There are many photo opportunities to be found during this informative walk. You can learn more about Colm’s walking tours here: http://www.dublinpubcrawl.com/writerswalk.htm.

A self-portrait made at The Duke Pub, where many of Dublin’s great authors took their liquid inspiration. Remember to include yourself in some images, but always look for unusual perspectives. Buy this photo

A park sculpture commemorates the Great Famine of the 1840s. To bring out the textures, I converted this image to black-and-white using Lightroom’s color channel tools, and boosted the contrast slightly. Buy this photo

Dublin Castle dates from early Anglo-Norman times, and a guided tour provides a sweeping history of Dublin from its origins through the present day.

To photograph the Castle and Dublin’s other architectural gems, use a wide-angle lens. Watch out for cluttered foregrounds and keep an eye on the lines at the edges of the frame, as it is tricky to avoid distortion when shooting up with a wide lens. Here I also used a polarizing filter to add contrast to a rather bleak scene. Buy this photo

The chapel within Dublin Castle offers many photographic possibilities. Seek out the details in a place like this. Here I’ve captured the beautiful (but, alas, no longer functioning) pipe organ. I brought out the shadow detail and increased the vibrance during post-processing. Buy this photo

It may or may not come as a surprise to learn that Ireland’s biggest attraction is the Guinness Storehouse. While it’s easy to dismiss sites like this one–essentially a theme park dedicated to a beer brand–that would be a mistake. The self-guided tour is fascinating for its historical, cultural, and architectural facets, and the view from the top-floor Gravity Bar (with an included pint of Guinness) is the best in Dublin.

The Guinness Storehouse was converted into a museum and tourist attraction, but happily they have retained much of the old brewing machinery, which makes a great photographic subject. I used a touch of flash here to saturate the colors. Buy this photo

My wife Mary pulls a perfect pint of Guinness. It’s more fun to include traveling companions when they’re doing something locally inspired and interesting. I used natural light with a fast portrait lens and relatively high ISO setting. The cluttered background isn’t as distracting as it could be, because it documents the bustle of the place. Buy this photo

Parting shot on our last night in Dublin. Another trad music session. This one (which also incorporates a self-portrait) was shot at the Cobblestone Pub. It was an informal sit-in session, so I had the chance to chat with and really get to know several of the musicians before shooting their portraits. Buy this photo

Have you visited Dublin? What do you consider essential activities–and photographic subjects–in this city? Please share your comments here.

Focus on Ireland: The Emerald Isle offers unique landscapes and culture

We’re just back from a two-week adventure in Ireland and Scotland. Our itinerary sandwiched a week of hiking in the glorious southwestern regions of Ireland (Counties Kerry and Cork) in between brief stays in the major cities of Dublin and Edinburgh. The photographic opportunities in these regions are remarkable, with lovely landscapes, historic architecture, and a generous friendly culture evident everywhere. I provide an overview in the form of a photo essay in today’s post, and upcoming posts will feature more details on specific places or types of subjects from the trip.

The Irish pub remains a central focus of life on the Emerald Isle. In cities and tiny rural villages, the pubs are places for people to come together and catch up with old friends, make new friends, listen to live traditional music, and of course drink a pint or two. This image was made in Dublin’s famed O’Donoghue’s Pub, where in the 1960s bands such as the Dubliners sparked the Irish folk music revival.
To make portraits in pubs, where the lighting is dim and the use of flash is out of the question, use a fast lens and a high ISO setting. You need a shutter speed of at least 1/80 of a second to get a reasonably sharp image of musicians at work. Buy this photo

It may come as a surprise (or not) to learn that Ireland’s most popular attraction is the Guinness Storehouse tour in Dublin. Here my wife pulls a perfect pint of the “black stuff,” which we then enjoyed in the Gravity Bar atop the storehouse with views overlooking all of Dublin.

Another low-light shot, this image was made with ambient light only, using a fast lens and relatively high ISO. Remember to capture some shots of your traveling companions. Buy this photo

I highly recommend a visit to the very remote Gougane Barra peninsula. There’s only one hotel, which offers outstanding food and views over a tiny island with a picturesque church and the ruins of a Sixth Century monastery. A photographer’s paradise!

We then hiked a portion of the long-distance Sheep’s Head Way. You’ll rarely encounter completely clear skies while walking in Ireland, but the changeable conditions can create opportunities for glorious landscapes. This lovely image was made just as the rain let up and the sun poked out, generating a vivid rainbow that spanned over the green fields and ancient walls.

At the end of the Sheep’s Head Way sits the lovely Bantry House, owned by the family since 1750. Climb the hill behind the house to capture the house and its gardens with the harbor behind. Buy this photo

This image at Priest’s Leap was made using a normal lens with polarizing filter, stopped down to maximize depth-of-field. Buy this photo

Ireland is filled with forests that exude a sense of mystery and magic. Look for the little things as you walk: a flower or shamrock, a moss-covered tree, a tiny stream. All that rain has the happy side-effect of making Ireland the greenest place I’ve ever seen.

Slow down and seek out the little natural details around you, like this moss-covered tree in Killarney National Park. Buy this photo

We spent every evening in Ireland visiting a pub or two. These pubs differ in character, but all reflect the generous and friendly local culture, and many offer live music.

At a pub in Killarney, I was chatting with this fiddler during a break between sets, and made this portrait using natural light with a fast portrait lens, a wide aperture, and a high ISO. Buy this photo

My essential portrait lens:

There was no time to set up a tripod as the warming sun was burning away the magical mist on the lake, so I shot this image handheld. Buy this photo

After Ireland, we spent a few days in Edinburgh, Scotland. This image was shot along the Royal Mile.

Be on the lookout for unusual perspectives. This image juxtaposes the different colors and textures of the statue in the foreground with the cathedral in the background. Buy this photo

Dining is an essential part of any trip, and Edinburgh offers many opportunities to savor the new Scottish cuisine. This lovely smoked salmon plate (with accompanying wee dram of whisky) was captured at the Tower Restaurant atop the Scottish National Museum.

For more about how to shoot food images, read this post: Post on Food Photography. Buy this photo

I hope this post inspires you to visit Ireland and Scotland. Look for posts over the next few days with more details about the trip and images.

If you’d like to read more posts about photographic destinations, you can find them all here: http://www.to-travel-hopefully.com/category/destinations/

Have you visited Ireland? What did you find most memorable? Any tips on photographing this enchanted place? Please share your thoughts in the comment box after this post.

When You Get Back Home [Encore Publication]: An Introduction to the Essentials of Post-processing

You may want to share some of your favorite images with friends and family right out of the camera while you’re still traveling, and as long as you’re not sharing so broadly that potential thieves may be alerted to your absence from home, that’s a fine thing to do. To enable immediate and easy sharing, you can choose the setting available on many cameras to shoot both RAW and JPG files; the JPG images will often look pretty decent for sharing when they come straight from the camera, and you still have your much more detailed image data saved in the RAW files.

But when you get home from your trip, it’s worth making the effort to catalog and post-process the RAW files of your favorite images so that they will look their very best and so you will be organized for finding them in the future. I’ll cover how to organize your catalog of images in a later post, but for now let’s take a look at the essentials of post-processing.

There are many software applications available to perform these tasks, but I strongly encourage you to check out Adobe Lightroom. I use this tool, and nearly all professional and enthusiast photographers I know also use it. You can license it along with other Adobe software on a pay-per-month basis as part of Adobe’s Creative Cloud, but it can also be purchased with a perpetual license (i.e., you purchase the software once and can use it forever), which is how I acquired it.

Once you have Lightroom installed on your PC, it’s easy to import your images from your camera’s memory card or from your PC’s hard drive and to organize your catalog of images using the software’s Library module. When your images are in your Lightroom catalog, the software allows you to perform all post-processing you desire using its Develop module. After shooting the image, my second-favorite part of the digital photography process is enhancing the the image in the Develop module. The software package even gets its name, Lightroom, as the new digital equivalent of the work we older photographers formerly had to do in the darkroom, such as dodging, burning, and cropping our film negatives to get the images looking their best.

As an example of how a little post-processing can dramatically enhance an image, let’s take a look at a night shot I made of Copenhagen’s Christiansborg Palace, the seat of the Danish Parliament. Here’s the “Before” picture:

Lightroom’s Develop module

The beauty of Lightroom’s method is that it doesn’t actually change your original image files as you edit them. Instead Lightroom saves a roadmap of the various edits you make and stores this list of adjustments along with a pointer to the original file. This is called “non-destructive editing”, and it allows you to edit your images to your heart’s content without overwriting or changing the originals at all. You can go back as many times as you want later to revisit your edits and change them again and again.

Let’s look at this process in more detail. Here is the basic Lightroom Develop module screen:

lightroom develop module

The left bar shows a thumbnail of the image you’re working on and a list of the most recent edits you have made. The central part of the screen shows a larger version of your image and this can be zoomed in and out to work on details or the whole image. The right bar has a histogram (a graph showing how many pixels in the image are at each brightness level from totally black to totally white) at the top, then a toolbar from which you can choose some of the editing tools quickly, and then a large area with sliders (only some of which are shown in this screenshot) that you move left or right to adjust various elements of your image. The editing tools in Lightroom are comprehensive enough that I find I very rarely need to import an image into Adobe Photoshop to make really sophisticated edits; nearly all of the time, I can perform all of my post-processing using only Lightroom.

Some photographers spend a lot of time making major enhancements to their images, but I like to try to adjust my camera’s settings precisely enough that the image is made in the camera the way I envisioned it when shooting, so that I need to make only minor adjustments in post-processing. While the exact steps of post-processing will be different for every image, here is my basic workflow (note that for the most part, I work from the top to the bottom of the adjustment tools found in the right bar):

Adjust the white balance as needed. Remember my advice to always shoot in RAW mode. One of the advantages of RAW files is that you can adjust the white balance in post-processing, regardless of what your camera’s white balance controls were set for while you were shooting the image. In JPG files you have much less control over the white balance after the fact. Just choose a different preset white balance type (such as Daylight, Shade, or Flash) from Lightroom’s menu, or create a custom white balance yourself.
Adjust the exposure as needed. Use the histogram and the image preview pane to lighten or darken the whole image until it looks best.
Adjust the contrast as needed. Increasing contrast gives more separation between the darkest and lightest portions of the image, while decreasing contrast does the opposite. I find that most images require the contrast to be increased slightly to moderately.
Adjust the highlights and shadows as needed. Highlights are the brighter parts of the image, and I find that often these need to be reduced in brightness to regain some detail that may have been lost in the camera. Shadows are the darker parts of the image, and often these need to be made brighter to bring out lost shadow detail. After the highlights and shadows have been adjusted, you may need to adjust the whites and blacks (very brightest and very darkest points in your image) if there are extremes of contrast present. Most of the time I do not need to change the white and black points.
Adjust the clarity as needed. The clarity slider changes the contrast of the middle tones (neither the darker nor the lighter parts) of the image. Usually images need a subtle increase in clarity to bring out the details in the texture. Don’t overuse this tool or the image can become unnatural looking.
Adjust the vibrance and/or saturation as needed. Both of these sliders will change the concentration of the colors in your image, but vibrance tries to avoid changing the color of skin tones so images with people will often look more natural after increasing the vibrance than after increasing saturation. Occasionally you might need to make adjustments to both vibrance and saturation, but usually I find a subtle increase in vibrance is sufficient. Again, don’t overuse these tools or your image will start to look exaggerated and surreal (unless you’re going for those effects).
Adjust the concentration of individual colors as needed. Each color channel has its own slider to increase or decrease its saturation. I don’t use these sliders often, but occasionally you may want to increase or decrease the saturation of just a single color. For example, when shooting a landscape with sky or water, you may want to increase the blue saturation to bring out those parts of the image.
If you want to work on your image in black-and-white, the color channels area is the tool I use to do the conversion from color to monochrome. Click on the “B&W” tab above the individual color channel sliders, and then adjust the mix of how the colors are blended by increasing or decreasing each color’s slider to see how the black-and-white image looks. I find that I often have to readjust the contrast slider at this point to get the image looking its best in black-and-white.
There is some sharpening already applied to your image file by default, but if it looks too soft in the important areas, you can dial in some additional sharpening.
When the image you’re editing was shot at a high ISO (sensitivity) and/or a very long shutter speed, there will likely be some noise in the image. This can be managed somewhat in Lightroom’s noise reduction tool.
Under basic lens corrections I will usually select all three of the check box items. Lightroom knows how most camera and lens combinations work and can eliminate many of the optical glitches that would otherwise show up in the image. Under manual lens corrections, I may need to rotate the image if the horizon wasn’t level when it was shot.
All of the above adjustments affect the entire image. After completing these adjustments, it’s time to make any selective adjustments that affect only a selected part of the image. These selective adjustment tools can be found in the toolbar just below the histogram.
Of these selective adjustment tools, the most generally useful is the cropping tool, which of course allows you to remove unwanted portions of the image on the sides, top, or bottom. It’s always best to try to compose the image correctly in the camera, but cropping is often still needed in post-processing.
The spot removal, filters, and adjustment brush are more complicated selective adjustment tools that can easily be subjects of additional posts in their own right.

These steps usually won’t all be needed for any one image. If you have several images that were shot under similar conditions, you can select them all in the Library module and turn on Auto Sync, which then allows you to make the adjustments only once and apply them to all the selected images. Another big time saver is creating your own presets, which are saved routines that you can call at the click of a button to automate tasks that would otherwise have taken multiple steps. Unlike Photoshop, Lightroom was designed by Adobe specifically for photographers to use, so it is set up in such a way as to make life much easier for us to organize, edit, and share our images.

Here is the “After” version of our sample image of Copenhagen by night. You can see how a few simple edits during post-processing can really make an image pop.

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I hope you’ve found this very basic introduction to the essentials of post-processing to be helpful. Now it’s your turn. What are your go-to techniques in editing your images? Do you have tips and tricks that you’ve found make your life easier after you return from a trip? Please share your thoughts in the comment box at the end of this post.

Amazing Landscapes [Encore Publication]: How to Make Images that Capture the Spirit of the Place

I love landscape photography. To create a really successful landscape image, several elements have to converge: the lighting must have a pleasing quality, objects in the foreground and/or middle ground should be intriguing, leading lines should take the viewer on a journey through the image, and (usually) the sky must be dramatic and compelling. I shoot a lot more mediocre landscapes than great ones, but when all the stars align (sometimes literally, during astrophotography shoots) and all those compositional elements are in place, the results can be amazing.

Let’s take a look at some of my favorite landscape images and talk about how they were made.
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While traveling in Svalbard to view the total solar eclipse of March 2015, my wife and I booked a safari via snowmobile to search for polar bears. We covered 80 miles by snowmobile, much of that after dark. The temperature averaged -5 degrees, with wind chill about 25 below zero Fahrenheit. We rode out to an area now used as a campground, where an early settler and his wife lived a century ago. This was glorious, otherworldly scenery encompassing ice fields, mountains, and the icy Barents Sea. Svalbard is located so far north (closer to the North Pole than to mainland Norway) that the sunsets last for hours, so I set up my gear at the edge of the Barents Sea, composed the frame so that the eye is led out to the horizon by the slabs of ice and the range of mountains, and waited for the best light. A polarizing filter added some drama to the sky. A very long exposure was not necessary because there was no point to trying in blur the frozen water. I shot several frames before the light became too dim and the temperature too bitter to continue. This shot was the keeper!

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This landscape was shot during a recent trip through Turkey and is a good example of how sometimes we photographers just get lucky. On arriving in the Cappadocian village of Üçhisar, we were thrilled to learn our hotel room was inside an ancient cave dwelling. We awoke at 5:30 AM the next morning to the sight out our cave-hotel’s window of hundreds of hot air balloons launching above the “fairy chimneys” that dominate the Cappadocian landscape. I got (mostly) dressed and rushed out onto our balcony, set up the camera on the lightweight travel tripod I carried on the trip, put on a wide-angle zoom lens, and started shooting as the sun rose. I bracketed the exposure but because the light was perfect in this one shot, I did not end up combining multiple exposures into an HDR (high dynamic range) image. Instead, this shot, one of the first of the morning’s session, was the clear choice.

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Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park is catnip for landscape photographers. There are so many glorious subjects here that you can go crazy trying to photograph everything. But Patagonian weather is notoriously changeable, and group travel doesn’t always afford photographers the chance to shoot at the right place at the right time of day with the right weather. Fortunately, on our second night at the lodge on Lago Gray, I could see all the conditions were lining up for an epic image. I skipped most of an excellent dinner so that I could set up my gear on the deck: camera with wide-angle lens, polarizing filter, steady tripod, and remote release. I framed the image with a nice balance between sky, mountains, glaciers, lake, and foreground foliage. And I started shooting. I bracketed the exposure with 7-shot bursts, each one stop apart. Later, in postprocessing, I combined a few of the shots from one burst into an HDR (high dynamic range) image using Lightroom’s photomerge feature.

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Closer to home, Yosemite is another photographer’s dream location. While hiking to Dog Lake in Yosemite’s Tuolumne Meadows area, a freak hailstorm hit. Suddenly the sky was hurling hailstones in biblical style and the formerly placid surface of the lake turned black with the force of the pelting ice. What’s a photographer to do? Start shooting, of course! A tripod was impractical under these conditions, so I used a relatively fast shutter speed and shot handheld. I took a series of bracketed exposures and combined them later using Lightroom into an HDR (high dynamic range) image. For me, this image works because of the tension between the peaceful foreground of tree trunk and reeds, contrasted with the ominous sky and turbulent water. The fallen tree and edge of the grasses provide nice leading lines from the peaceful to the violent portions of the frame.

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Another California landscape, this image was shot in the gorgeous Point Lobos reserve on California’s Central Coast. As sunset neared, I set up camera and tripod right on the beach, shooting down onto the rocks and Pacific Ocean. I used a neutral density filter to allow a very long exposure so that the water would blur. I also attached a polarizing filter in an attempt to darken the sky and add drama to the image, but having two filters on the wide-angle lens did lead to some vignetting (the blocking of light at the edges of the photo), which I had to crop out in postprocessing. This image was made from a single exposure with only minor adjustments to bring out the shadow details and saturate the colors.

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This year’s Perseid Meteor Shower was more active than we’ve seen in many years. At the peak night of the shower, I headed out to a spot where a break in the trees allows a view over Crystal Springs Reservoir and the Santa Cruz Mountains. We waited until about 2 AM so that the meteor activity was at a peak and the lights of the nearby towns were no longer bright. Shooting with a wide-angle lens and a heavy professional tripod, I framed the image to include a pleasing foreground with trees, reservoir, and mountains, with most of the frame covering the dark sky. I used a star finder app to shoot toward the galactic core of the Milky Way. I set the camera to make 25-second exposures at f/4 and ISO 1600. At this focal length, exposures longer than 25 seconds will cause the stars to appear blurry due to the motion of the earth. And then I just kept shooting, one exposure after another, for nearly two hours. Four meteors passed through the part of the sky in my image area during this time, and I combined the images that included them into one merged image using a software application called StarStaX. While I like this image a lot, it could have been improved by finding a darker sky area (the lights from a nearby city caused the orange glow at the top of the mountains) and by bringing out the Milky Way a bit more prominently. Now I know what to do during next year’s Perseid Shower!

A good wide-angle zoom lens is a must for landscape photography. Many of the images featured in this post were shot with my Nikon 16-35mm f/4 lens. It’s got great image quality and is well built, and I find it’s a great alternative (except perhaps for astrophotography where the extra speed is required) to the popular but very expensive Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8.

Want to see more articles on how to shoot travel images? Find them all here: http://www.to-travel-hopefully.com/category/travel/shoot/

Now I’d love to hear from you! What are your favorite landscape images, and why? To what lengths have you gone to capture landscape photos? Please share your thoughts in the comment box at the end of this post.

I See a Red Door and I Want to Paint It Black [Encore Publication]: When a black-and-white image is better than color, and how to convert to B&W

Back in the day, a photographer had to choose in advance whether to shoot with color film or black-and-white film. Conversions from color to B&W were cumbersome and expensive, and conversions from B&W to color were essentially impossible. During the film era, I typically shot exclusively using color transparency film while traveling, and reserved B&W photography for particularly artistic shoots near home.

Thankfully, in today’s digital world, we no longer have to commit ourselves in advance to monochrome vs. color images. It’s now a simple procedure to convert our color images to B&W during post-processing. And that’s a great blessing, because there are plenty of times when a black-and-white photo is better than a color photo.

Consider the image of the alligator at the start of this post. One of my favorite photos, this one works just fine in color, too. But the real power of the image is revealed in B&W through the striking textures of the alligator’s skin as seen above the water and as reflected off the water’s surface. The background above the water fades to a deep, nearly true, black, with the background of the water itself rendered slightly less darkly and showing some nice ripples of motion. Black-and-white photography is especially powerful when there are contrasts of pattern, texture, and background as in this image. Buy this photo

When else might we want to render an image in B&W?

Portraits made in monochrome have a timeless look that evokes the earlier years of photography, and this rendering can also bring out the true nature of the subject. There’s a lovely look to the skin tones and hair when displayed in B&W, and there are fewer distracting elements from the color of clothing or background objects.

This portrait takes on a vintage, timeless look when shown in B&W. Our eye can focus on the model’s face and hair without the distractions of the colors in her sweater or the building. There’s almost a street photography kind of documentary quality to this image in monochrome that is lost when viewed in color. Buy this photo

Color can be distracting in an image where we want to emphasize the essence of a person or place. In this portrait I made recently for a couple who are fellow musicians and friends of mine, we had beautiful “golden hour” light to work with, and the background and clothing worked well in color. But converted to B&W, this image really places the emphasis on the couple without the distractions of the color cast in the reflections off the eyeglasses or of the mixed lighting in the background.

In this portrait, black-and-white presentation places the viewer’s attention squarely on the the couple and their instruments, without distractions from the multiple colors of the clothing and background components. (Client photo not available for purchase.)

When you’re shooting under “mixed lighting”, which means there are multiple light sources with different color temperatures (i.e., some light sources are warmer and others are cooler), converting the image to B&W can be a real problem solver. Consider the image below, made in Bruges at night. The light from the street lamps was warmer than the light coming from the spotlights on various buildings, and there was also a bright moon that night, so when seen in color the photo would look less appealing due to the contrasting of the color temperatures in the different parts of the image. But viewed in B&W, it brings out the grandeur of the old buildings and the beauty of the reflections in the waters of the canal, without the distractions of the color casts.

This image of Bruges at night, when processed in B&W, removes the contrasting color temperatures of the multiple different light sources and allows the viewer to enjoy the stately old buildings with consistent tone and texture. Buy this photo

Now that we’ve covered a few of the many situations in which a black-and-white image is preferable over a color image, let’s look at how to convert from color to B&W. There are many ways to perform this conversion, but I recommend it be done using the Color Adjustments settings in the Develop module of Adobe Lightroom. Here’s how:

Click on the “B&W” tab above the individual color channel sliders, and then adjust the mix of how the colors are blended by increasing or decreasing each color’s slider to see how the black-and-white image looks. I find that I often have to readjust the contrast slider at this point to get the image looking its best in black-and-white.

For more on using Lightroom to post-process your images, check out my previous post: Previous post on using Lightroom to post-process images.

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I do not recommend using your camera’s built-in black-and-white mode, as you will then lose the color information in the image file. I also do not suggest using the settings some cameras have to make a copy of the image in B&W, because in most cases the camera’s built-in software will not do a very good job of rendering the image in monochrome. For the best results, either use Lightroom or a dedicated black-and-white conversion application such as Silver Efex Pro 2 from Nik Software, which is available as a plug-in for Lightroom or Photoshop.

Want to read other posts about travel photography techniques? Find them all here: http://www.to-travel-hopefully.com/category/techniques/

What do you love about a black-and-white image? When do you convert an image to B&W rather than share it in color? Any tips or tricks for how to make great B&W photos? Please share your thoughts in the comment box!

A “Fixer” for the Rest of Us [Encore Publication]: How to leverage local resources to shoot like a pro

How do professional travel photographers on assignment create those amazing, make-your-jaw-drop images? You know, the photos we see when browsing the pages of a major travel magazine or website? There are several advantages the pros have, including technique honed over decades of practice, state-of-the-art equipment (with prices to match), and the ability to spend a lot of time at the same location, returning again and again until the time of day, lighting, weather conditions, and subject matter are perfectly aligned for a great shot. But one advantage available to the pros can be borrowed, at least in part, by the rest of us who love travel photography, too. That is the use of a “fixer,” a local expert who knows the region, the language, the culture, and the way to get things done, and whose expertise helps the travel photographer get those incredible shots.

While we were visiting a carpet weaving collective in Goreme, Turkey, our group’s trip leader introduced me to this worker who was enjoying a cup of Turkish coffee during her break. Buy this photo

If you are traveling on a group trip run by a good travel company, you may already may have a fixer working to make your experience (including your photographic experience) as rewarding as possible. The operator will likely have chosen an itinerary that will get you off the beaten path and into the settings where unusual and powerful images can be made. They will have arranged your accommodations and transportation well in advance of your departure. The company should have planned some activities and excursions that will allow you to interact with local people and see how they truly live. And best of all, they have provided you with a local expert, often called a trip leader or program director, who knows the lay of the land, speaks the local language(s), and can facilitate your getting the kinds of shots you want. This is of paramount importance when you want to have lots of interaction within a culture very different from your own, which I believe is the best part of traveling as a photographer.

For example, I made the above portrait after being introduced to the young worker at a carpet weaving collective by our trip leader in Turkey. He translated so that she and I could get to know each other a little bit first, and then asked her if I could make her portrait. It is certainly possible (I’ve done this countless times) to ask for yourself by using sign language, pointing to your camera, and smiling a lot, but having a local person with you can be a great help.

Sometimes, knowing where to go to seek out authentic cultural interactions works magic. I captured this shot of our host family during a home-hosted lunch on an estancia (ranch) in Patagonia.

Our hosts, Chango and his extended family, were happy to pose for a portrait after we enjoyed their hospitality on their Patagonian ranch. A local guide and good travel company can help arrange these kinds of authentic interactions. Buy this photo

Visiting a rural elementary school in Tanzania afforded us the chance to meet kids in the classroom. This type of experience would be hard to arrange while traveling independently, but a good group leader or guide can facilitate meaningful interactions with local people. Buy this photo

When the trip is scheduled specifically to attend a special event, it is especially vital to have a good leader who is adept at working with local professionals to plan all the details. For example, it was quite a major logistical feat to get a large group of scientists and photographers into place to study and view a total solar eclipse in a part of the world as remote and forbidding as Svalbard. Our trip leader partnered with an astrophysicist who is a world authority on eclipses, beginning years in advance of the solar event, to ensure we had the best chance possible of clear weather conditions and the right vantage point from which to study and photograph the eclipse. This is the sort of value that an expert fixer brings when you book a trip with one of the top companies.

Our eclipse expert and one of his students set up their gear on the morning of the total solar eclipse in Svalbard. Buy this photo

To be sure, there are some compromises required for group travel, and having access to a shared program director is not the same as having a dedicated personal fixer to arrange your photo shoots for you. I like to travel independently in places with developed infrastructure and where I can readily bridge the cultural or language gaps myself. That said, I also love to travel in small groups run by excellent travel companies, in large part because their planning, coupled with the knowledge of the local trip leader, helps me make those memorable images.

Want to read other posts about planning your travel photography? Find them all here: http://www.to-travel-hopefully.com/category/travel/plan/

Have you had a situation where you got your shot thanks to the knowledge of a local expert? How do you arrange your travel when you’re visiting remote parts of the world or when you want to have lots of interaction within a culture very different from your own? I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences! Please respond via the comment box.

Photography as a Bridge to Local Culture [Encore Publication]: Your camera is a great tool for meeting local people and learning about culture

I’ve heard certain travelers grumble that photography inhibits deep cultural learning and interaction when we visit new places. Our cameras, this line of reasoning goes, isolate us from the local people we’re trying to get to know. The lens, they believe, acts as a distancing device to turn locals into subjects and travelers into tourists.

I disagree emphatically! Your camera is a great tool for meeting local people and learning about culture, immersing yourself even more deeply in the spirit of the place and the lives of the people who live there. But only if you use it in the right way. Allow me to explain.

While the local customs and even the laws governing whom it is acceptable to photograph, and when or where it is okay to make an image of them, do vary from place to place, there are a few common-sense guidelines that will help us travelers engage in a friendly, curious manner instead of upsetting people and causing social discord. Here are a few key guidelines to keep in mind.

The Golden Rule: If it’s not okay in your home country, it’s probably not okay in other parts of the world. Would you appreciate a stranger running up to you on your front lawn and shoving a lens in your face? I’m guessing, no. So please don’t behave in that way toward people in other places.
Make a portrait, don’t take a portrait: Get to know your subject first as a person, even if just for a brief exchange. While there are occasionally situations where the moment or the expression will be lost by approaching your subject before shooting, I find that most of the time I make better images as well as have more meaningful interactions, when I say hello and ask the person first.

I chatted for a while with these samba dancers as they were celebrating just after San Francisco’s Carnaval parade. Getting to know them first made it easy to ask permission for a portrait. Buy this photo

Approach children with sensitivity: Kids can be amazing photographic subjects! They are often uninhibited in front of the camera and they portray cultural practices and lifestyle in a relatable, endearing way. But it’s especially important to understand when it’s okay to make a portrait with them. While traveling in South Africa, I saw first-hand what can happen when travelers misunderstand social norms. A fellow traveler in my group saw a young boy playing near where we were waiting for a border crossing. She shouted excitedly, “Soooo cute!,” and rushed up to the child, camera extended toward his face, to take his picture. In an instant the boy’s father ran over, irate, and yelled at me (he mistakenly thought I was the fellow traveler’s father), “How would you like it if we came to your country and started taking pictures of your children?” A few minutes later I explained privately to the offending traveler why her actions caused a negative reaction. She had no idea this behavior wasn’t okay. When in doubt, refer to the Golden Rule, above.

We visited the old town in Kashgar just before the Chinese government began demolishing the homes there and relocating the mostly ethnic Uighur people. It was and remains a complicated social situation, but I was fortunate to be able to make this memorable portrait of a young Uighur girl in traditional clothing sitting in front of her soon-to-be-destroyed family house. I approached her mother first to make sure it was okay to photograph the girl. Her expression of pride mixed with apprehension is what I feel makes this image strong. Buy this photo

Getting to know you: It may seem difficult to talk with a stranger from a very different culture who likely speaks a very different language from our own. For us introverts, it seems like even more of a challenge. But I’ve learned a few tricks and tips that make it much easier to get to know a person before photographing them. Learn a few words of the local language. Just saying “hello” or “good day” can be a great icebreaker. It’s a fairly universal gesture to point to your camera and extend your arm gently toward your hopeful subject to inquire, “Is it okay if I take your picture?” Just as happens in our home countries, a subject may say no, but most of the time people are happy to be photographed if you are polite, respectful, and try to interact with them first. A trip leader, guide, or local friend can often be a great help by introducing you to the person you’d like to photograph.

At the start of our trip through Turkey, I asked our trip leader to introduce me to people we felt would be good portrait subjects. With his help I was able to overcome the language and cultural difference and capture this striking portrait of an employee at a carpet weaving cooperative. Buy this photo

How close is too close?: In most situations it is fine to make an image that includes a large group of people, none of whom will be too prominent in the photo. For close-up images, though, in which an individual person or small group of people will be the obvious subject, it is best to ask first.
Money matters: When there is a commercial transaction between you and your subject, it often paves the way to ask to make their portrait. I’ve had good experiences photographing local street vendors, musicians, artisans, and shopkeepers after purchasing their wares or tipping them for their services. And of course it is usually fine to photograph singers, dancers, and musicians in a performance you have paid to attend, as long as local rules about photography are obeyed (sometimes you will have to pay extra for a license to photograph, and frequently flash is not permitted). But it can become a slippery slope when people begin to expect to be paid just for having travelers photograph them. In Peru we had many people, including young children, dress in traditional costumes and approach us to pose in photos for money. In an Argentinian mountain village we were even asked to pay to photograph a gentleman’s Saint Bernard dogs. In these situations, you’ll have to exercise your best judgment.
When can you shoot first and ask questions later?: It’s rare, but on occasion you will encounter situations when the “decisive moment” will be lost if you ask for permission to shoot. This is another judgment call. Just like when shooting street photography at home, I consider several factors when deciding whether to make an image of a stranger in a different part of the world. When I do see an amazing expression, gesture, or moment and decide to capture it before getting to know the subject, I will usually approach them and show them the image on the camera’s display, attempting to query whether it’s okay. A smile and an easygoing, open gesture can help when approaching. If the response is clearly negative, I delete the image on the spot and in front of the subject. Again, see the Golden Rule, above, and keep in mind that courtesy and respect make all the difference.

This was one of those situations when I shot first and asked questions later. The proprietor of Maria’s Cafe in an eco-village in Cuba’s rural Vinales Valley was standing on a balcony above the cafe surveying the activity below. I loved the way her contemplative expression and relaxed gesture were framed by the saturated Caribbean colors of the doorway, so I made this image right from our table. Later, when Maria came down to talk with customers, I showed her the photo and she was pleased with it. Buy this photo

Beyond these general guidelines, there are local variations. Do get to know the customs that prevail in the countries and regions you plan to visit. For example, in some cultures it is acceptable to stand very close to others when conversing, while in other cultures the social boundaries are much more pronounced. Sometimes it is fine to approach a child directly, but in other cases the first contact should be made with the parent or teacher. There’s quite a bit of local variation in the amount of small-talk people engage in before getting down to business. Knowing the local customs not only helps you make better portraits of the people you meet, but will also encourage deeper interactions and mutual respect.

In my experience, the camera is a wonderful bridge that enhances, rather than detracts from, making meaningful cultural connections with people while traveling. Just try to do it the right way!

Want to read other posts about what to shoot during your travels? Find them all here: http://www.to-travel-hopefully.com/category/travel/shoot/

Do you have a good story to share about your experiences, positive or otherwise, in photographing people you met during your travels? What’s your approach to making portraits while abroad? How has photography enhanced your cultural interactions? Please post your thoughts in the comment box.

Beyond the Auto Mode: Take control of your images by learning to manually set exposure, focus, and more [Encore Publication]

Travel photography is so exciting and satisfying in part because it requires us to capture every kind of image in all kinds of shooting environments. You could be heading out to shoot landscapes when suddenly a rare sighting of an animal transforms your activity into a wildlife shoot. Or you may be on the road for your next destination when you stumble upon a colorful local festival, and now you’re shooting portraits of the revelers. This rich diversity of subjects also creates one of the biggest challenges for travel photographers: how to be prepared for anything that comes our way. For beginning photographers there is some comfort in using the Auto mode that nearly every camera offers. After all, we’re more likely to get an acceptable shot this way, when the subject turns quickly from fast action to landscapes to the low light of evening, or to an indoor performance. But in most cases, your camera’s Auto mode, which attempts to make its best guesses as to what settings to use given existing conditions, will yield only acceptable photos and not the striking and memorable images we’re after.

There is a better way. Take control of your images by learning how to manually set your exposure, focus, and other aspects of your photo. All advanced point-and-shoot cameras and all mirrorless and DSLR cameras allow you to set most functions manually. Even some basic point-and-shoot models have a way to go manual, but often this will involve options buried deep in a menu somewhere. And there are apps available for both iOS and Android smart phones that allow you to take manual control over your phone’s camera. I use an iPhone 6S, and I’ve found the “Manual” app to work very nicely for providing control over the phone’s camera setting for exposure, focus, and flash. You can find it for less than $2 on the Apple App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/manual-custom-exposure-camera/id917146276?mt=8. Even without using an app, most smart phone cameras do allow you to override the automatic settings by clicking on the part of the image you want to be in focus and used for the exposure setting; usually you can also set the exposure based on a different area of the image from the area that you want to be in focus. But the dedicated apps will give you greater control, as they allow you to choose the shutter speed, aperture, and ISO for each shot.

For this image of a whirling dervish in Goreme, Turkey, I wanted to blur the dancer so as to give a sense of the continual turning motion in the ceremony, so I used my camera’s shutter-priority exposure mode and selected a slower shutter speed. Buy this photo

The key to successfully using your camera’s manual settings is to learn how they work and to practice at home, long before you actually take a trip. Like anything else, selecting the settings we want on a camera takes practice. In this digital era, it’s easier to learn because you can see the results of each setting immediately on your camera’s screen. So dig out that camera user guide, or find it online, or search for a good tutorial. But do learn how to adjust the key settings manually.

The first manual setting every photographer should learn is how to turn off your camera’s flash. This sounds very basic, but I’m always amazed to see so many flashes going off in inappropriate places: museums that don’t allow flash photography, cultural performances, sports stadiums where the subject is thousands of feet away from the camera (the flash will only provide acceptable lighting for a few dozen feet, at most), and even the shy octopus exhibit at our local aquarium. Believe me, you do not want to flash the octopus. So learn how to turn your flash off, and be sure you actually do turn it off when you’re in a venue where flash is inappropriate or won’t help your image be better exposed. Remember that glass reflects light, so you don’t want your flash on when shooting through windows of a vehicle or the glass windows of animal enclosures at zoos or aquariums.

Next, learn how to set your camera’s exposure manually. The light meters built into today’s cameras are very smart, but they are also easily fooled by tricky lighting conditions. The most common problem is backlighting. If your subject is lit from behind, as many outdoor subjects are, your camera’s auto mode will likely expose for the brighter background and will leave your main subject underexposed. You can adjust for this is several ways. It may be good enough to just use your camera’s exposure compensation button to dial in, say, one extra stop of exposure. Use your camera’s LCD screen and (if it has one) the histogram, to see how the subject is exposed with varying levels of compensation. In some cases, you can use fill flash to fix backlighting problems. To do so, manually turn on your camera’s flash, or attach a separate flash unit, and choose the setting for “fill flash” or “balanced TTL” (through the lens) flash mode. Again, check exposure using your camera’s screen and histogram. I find I usually get good results in tricky lighting conditions by using my camera’s spot metering mode, which tells the camera’s meter to use only the very center (or whatever area I select) of the image when choosing the exposure.

Other than allowing you to properly expose your main subject, manually setting the exposure also gives you control over what combination of shutter speed (how long the exposure lasts), aperture (how wide the lens is open), and ISO (how sensitive the camera is to light) you want for each shot. If you’re shooting fast moving action like sports or wildlife, you will likely want to choose a fast shutter speed to freeze the motion (unless you want a blur effect as an artistic choice). If you’re photographing a waterfall or sky and want to get some nice blurring of the water and/or clouds, you will probably want to choose a slower shutter speed. Many times you want only certain parts of the image to be in focus. A wide aperture (low F-stop number such as f/1.8) will give you a shallow depth-of-field, allowing only one part of the image to be in focus and blurring the other parts. Conversely, a narrow aperture (high F-stop number such as f/16) will allow all parts of the photo to be in focus. The final element determining exposure is the sensitivity of the camera’s sensor, measured by an ISO number. Select a higher ISO (such as 1600 or above) only when you really need the extra sensitivity for very low-light subjects when a longer shutter speed or wider aperture is not suitable. When you use very high ISO settings, the image will tend to have a lot of noise. Today’s cameras are getting better at limiting noise at high ISO settings, and there are ways to reduce some of the effects of the noise using post-processing software, so my approach is to use as high an ISO as is required after considering the range of available shutter speeds and apertures.

To capture these professional beach volleyball players in sharp focus and to freeze the moment, I selected single-focus-point focus mode and chose the exact spot in the viewfinder where the players would be positioned, and also used my camera’s shutter-priority exposure mode to select a very fast shutter speed. Buy this photo

The other major type of manual setting that you need to know how to use is focus. Most cameras today do a pretty good job of choosing the right part of the image to focus on, but they often need some help from the photographer. From simple smart phone cameras through professional DSLRs, the autofocus function almost always lets the photographer select what part of the image they want to be in focus. If you keep your camera in fully autofocus mode and don’t help by selecting where your main subject is, it may very well guess incorrectly and put another part of the image as the center of focus. So, learn how to select the focus point even while letting your camera’s autofocus mechanism actually choose the focus distance. Sometimes a camera’s autofocus capability may not work for the conditions under which you’re shooting, and in these cases you need to turn off autofocus completely, and focus in manual mode. Some instances when this is necessary are when shooting in very low light conditions, or when shooting in poor contrast environments (for example, your subject’s texture looks a lot like that of its background, or you’re shooting into the bright sun). In these cases, turn off the autofocus function and adjust focus manually until the subject looks sharp.

It’s still fine to walk around during your travels with your camera set in fully Auto mode, just in case something very unexpected comes up. But do know how to set the main functions manually so you’ll get the best possible images in the 95% of the shooting situations when you do have time to set up first.

Want to read other posts about photographic techniques? Find them all here: http://www.to-travel-hopefully.com/category/techniques/

Do you have tips and tricks you can share on manually adjusting the camera’s settings to get great shots? How about a time you kept the camera on Auto mode and got disappointing results? Please share your thoughts using the comment box at the end of this post.

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