photography – Page 14 – To Travel Hopefully

Please Join Me for a Hands-on Portraiture Workshop: Learn to make beautiful portraits using natural light

Dear Readers,

If you’d like to learn how to make beautiful portraits using just natural light and a few simple techniques, then please join me for a 2-hour hands-on workshop/class that I’ll be teaching several times over the next few weeks. Held in a scenic location in Mountain View, CA, these classes will cover the basics of techniques and tools, and then we’ll practice by shooting in the field with a wonderful model. Learn more or register for a session here: Kyle’s workshop on portraiture using natural light.

In today’s post I am sharing a few favorite images that we shot during a recent session of this workshop. Working with our wonderful model Roxy, I walked students through the entire process of creating stunning headshots, full-body and action portraits, and environmental portraits, all using only natural light and with a minimum of gear, fuss, and bother. Students learned how to configure their cameras, what lenses to choose for different portrait situations, where to shoot, how to pose and direct the model, how to use light modifiers (reflectors and diffusers), and much more.

Learning to capture flattering and eye-catching headshots is a basic requirement for portrait photography.

We will also learn to make full-body and action shots that bring out our subject’s true personality.

Always be on the lookout for special and playful moments.

I emphasize the artistic as well as the technical aspects of portrait photography.

Roxy really went the extra mile by climbing a tree wearing heels and a red dress! In my hands-on portrait workshops, we will collaborate with fun and creative models. Students will gain skills and a comfort level in directing models, even if they have never worked with a model previously.

You can see more details and book a session of the class here: Kyle’s workshop on portraiture using natural light. More dates will be added soon. Hope to see you at one of these sessions!

“To Travel Hopefully” News Flash!: I am honored to be a winner of the Peninsula Photography Contest

Dear Readers,

I’m proud to report that one of my images was selected as a winner in the Peninsula Photography Contest. It will be exhibited at the Palo Alto Art Center from May 19 through June 17, and will also be featured in several publications and websites.

The winning image, submitted in the Travel Photography category, is a favorite from my recent travels in Myanmar. It’s part of a series that depicts the difficult plight of the children of the “Bamboo Village”, an informal housing settlement outside of the capital city of Yangon (Rangoon), where 10 years after the disastrous typhoon struck Myanmar many of the displaced are still living in squalid conditions with little government support.

To me, travel photography is about more than just creating art: it’s also a means to connect with local people, capture a strong sense of place, and advocate for social change and justice. As readers of To Travel Hopefully, you’ve seen me return to these themes again and again. So I’m especially honored to have this particular image featured in the Peninsula Photography Contest’s winners gallery, and pleased to have this opportunity to share the image and the story behind it more broadly.

The winning image: “A fascinating visit to an informal housing settlement inhabited by people displaced by the devastating 2008 typhoon. A decade later they are still living in squalid conditions in bamboo huts with no running water. Here, children are filling containers with water from the lake and carrying 40 kg (88 pounds) of water, often more than their body weight, several miles to their families’ homes.”

If you live in or near the San Francisco Bay Area, please come to the show at the Palo Alto Art Center between May 19 and June 17. Thank you for your ongoing support!

I See a Little Silhouetto of a Man [Encore Publication]: Intentionally underexposing your subject can create dramatic images

A silhouette is an image rendered as a solid shape of a single color with its edges showing the outline of the subject. In photography this is a rather easy effect to achieve. Simply by underexposing the subject by several stops, all the shadow detail is lost and the subject will appear as an outline in black. This technique can yield dramatic, powerful images if used properly and sparingly.

When the subject is already backlit, just expose for the background and then dial down the exposure by approximately two stops. This image of a man fishing off the seawall at the Malecon in Havana, Cuba works effectively as a silhouette. The subject was strongly backlit by the late afternoon sun reflecting off the ocean, so I exposed for the water and compensated by another two stops. The resulting photo is more evocative of the mood of quiet contemplation than it would be had I exposed for the fisherman.

This shot of a man fishing off a sea in Havana is rendered more powerfully with the subject in silhouette. Buy this photo

During a studio shoot with a yoga and fitness model, we decided to try something different. We turned off the main light and the fill light that ordinarily illuminate the model, and instead turned up the intensity of the lights on the white backdrop. The resulting images showed the model in full silhouette as she dances and performs yoga poses.

In the studio, turning off the primary lights and increasing the brightness of the back lights yields a true silhouette. This image is striking because it reduces the model’s form to an outline, emphasizing her motion. Buy this photo

The silhouette is a simple technique you can use to get creative in your photography. Experiment away–memory cards are cheap!

When do use the silhouette as a photographic technique? Please share your tips here.

Want to see more posts on techniques? Find them all here: Posts on Techniques.

Rock Solid [Encore Publication]: Why you should always have a tripod with you

Tripods have had their ups and down, so to speak. When photography was in its infancy, the wet plates used to make the images were very slow, so extremely long exposures were required and the cameras were big and bulky, so use of a big, heavy wooden tripod was essential. It’s all the more remarkable when looking at the incomparable work of Ansel Adams to realize that in order to make these images he had to hike miles up steep mountain trails with a heavy view camera, several big and fragile plates, and an enormous tree trunk of a tripod. As cameras became smaller and film faster, tripods went out of style except for certain low-light situations for professionals. Now, more and more enthusiast photographers are recognizing the value of a sturdy tripod for capturing the best possible quality images of landscapes, buildings, and of course night scenes. In some iconic travel spots, it’s hard to find space to shoot amidst the ocean of tripods.

Sure, they’re heavy and bulky, particularly when we’re hiking or walking for long stretches. But a good solid tripod is essential for so many types of shots that I now carry one with me at nearly all times.

An example of a technique requiring a tripod even in bright light is high dynamic range (HDR) photography. To make an HDR image, you shoot a series of photos of the exact same scene in rapid succession, varying the exposure by a little bit between each frame, and then use special software during post-processing to bring out all brightness levels in the image, from the dark shadows to the brilliant highlights. But if the camera moves at all between the shots, it becomes harder to stitch the shots together into a beautiful HDR image. I’ve been known to handhold some HDR shots, but I strongly recommend shooting them using a tripod. Of course, you’ll also want a tripod for low-light and nighttime photography, and they’re very useful for landscape images where the high resolution of your camera’s sensor is called upon to render extremely fine detail throughout the scene. And let’s not forget that to include yourself in a scene, use of a tripod makes life a lot easier.

Although I was shooting in bright sunlight, I needed a tripod to make this HDR image of Yosemite Valley peaks reflected in the Merced River. If the camera moves at all between frames, it is harder to combine them into the final photo. Buy this photo

For most travel situations, you’ll want a lightweight tripod that folds up to a portable size but still offers enough stability for most uses. There are times, though, when I need to bring along my heavy and bulky professional tripod. Whatever tripod you choose, be sure to fit it with a good quality head–ball heads provide a lot of flexibility and ease of use for travelers–and remember to take along the plate that attaches the tripod to your camera, if required.

My go-to lightweight travel tripod is the Manfrotto Be Free. 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 specially designed pouch in my favorite travel photography backpack, also made by Manfrotto.

The SLIK 615-315 is a great tripod for use close to home or on trips where you will have constant vehicle support. It’s very solid, supports a tremendous amount of weight, and can be adjusted for nearly any shooting situation. I recommend you fit it with a good ball head for maximum flexibility.

A monopod can be a real problem solver when you need more stability than handholding or resting your camera on a vehicle or table will afford, but you can’t carry or use a full tripod. I use the Manfrotto 681B model.

To be sure, if you know 100 photographers, you’ll hear 110 different opinions about tripods and the heads and plates that go with them. The products listed above are my recommendations only, but I’ve had good experiences using them. For those with a lot more money to spend, tripods and heads made by Really Right Stuff are much beloved by professional and well-heeled enthusiast photographers.

What combination of tripod, head, and plate do you use, and why? Please share your recommendations here. Tripods are one piece of gear with which we’re constantly experimenting, so bring it on!

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

Please Join Me for a Hands-on Portraiture Workshop: Learn to make beautiful portraits using natural light

Dear Readers,

Learning to capture flattering and eye-catching headshots is a basic requirement for portrait photography.

We will also learn to make full-body and action shots that bring out our subject’s true personality.

Always be on the lookout for special and playful moments.

I emphasize the artistic as well as the technical aspects of portrait photography.

You can see more details and book a session of the class here: Kyle’s workshop on portraiture using natural light. More dates will be added soon. Hope to see you at one of these sessions!

Focus on Yellowstone and Grand Teton [Enore Publication]: The oldest national park in the US remains one of the best photographic destinations

My last visit to Yellowstone National Park and its nearby cousin Grand Teton National Park was in June of 2011, and I am long overdue for a return trip. These two gems of the US National Park system are among the world’s best photographic destinations. Featuring an amazing array of mountain scenery, geothermal activity, wildlife, and human cultural records, Yellowstone and Grand Teton are, simply put, indispensable destinations for travel photographers. In today’s post, let’s look at a few of my favorite images from the 2011 trip and discuss how they were made. While the parks haven’t changed too much over the past six years, the state of the art of photographic gear certainly has changed a great deal. Today’s cameras and lenses will afford photographers even more options for capturing the remarkable beauty of these parks.

Yellowstone N.P. has more geothermal activity than any other region of the world, and this activity manifests itself in many fascinating ways. The Mammoth Terraces area of the park is known for its gloriously delicate and colorful silica terraces, including the one in this image. For a great landscape image, it’s best to combine the main subject (here, the silica terraces) with striking foreground and/or background elements (here, the Teton Mountain Range, behind). I used a circular polarizing filter to bring out the drama in the sky and the highlights in the mountain range, but I dialed back the polarizing effect a bit so as not to eliminate the gorgeous reflections in the pools. Buy this photo

Yellowstone and Grand Teton N.P.’s are filled with fascinating wildlife, including American bison, elk, wolf, coyote, marmot, osprey, and many other mammal and bird species. Here I’ve captured (in images, of course) an intrepid coyote that cut across our hiking trail. For striking wildlife portraits, it’s best to use a medium to long telephoto lens so as not to have to get so close as to stress the animal (or risk your own safety). Tack-sharp focus is important, and I always strive to frame the subject with as uncluttered a background as possible. Buy this photo

Photographs that tell stories are perennial favorites. I love the humor apparent in this image, which tells the story of a standoff between a large male bison and two park rangers attempting to shepherd a convoy of park visitors across the field to an interpretive nature program and barbecue dinner. At the time this photo was made, the bison was winning. Buy this photo

Just as in a portrait of a person, a wildlife portrait should capture the spirit of the subject. This large marmot was sitting up as if to get a better look at us. His expression is both comical and wise. To maximize the chances of capturing just the right expression and position, frame the subject first, set the proper focus and exposure, and then shoot continuously for several seconds. Buy this photo

The quaint Chapel of the Transfiguration, located amidst some of the world’s most lovely mountain scenery in Grand Teton N.P., is a wonderful photographic subject. Here I framed the Tetons in the chapel’s window and fired an off-camera speedlight to illuminate the walls and altar of the church. Buy this photo

The iconic Moulton Barn sits on a field in Grand Teton N.P. with the glory of the Teton Mountain Range arrayed behind it. This landscape image was made with great care to ensure a pleasing composition including barn, mountains, and cloudy sky, as well as to expose for the wooden texture of the barn. A small aperture (high F-stop number) was used to keep the entire scene in focus. I used a polarizing filter to bring out the drama in the sky and mountains, as well as to concentrate the lovely green and blue colors. The scene was further enhanced to achieve a pleasing balance through tone and saturation adjustments in post-processing. Buy this photo

I was drawn to the texture and patterns of the cracked muddy ground in a geothermal area of Yellowstone N.P. Composing the image to include just enough of the pattern as well as leading lines to draw the eye downrange, I converted it to black-and-white and made adjustments to contrast and tonal range in post-processing. Buy this photo

Yellowstone’s Grand Prismatic Spring is a breathtaking feature that is almost impossible not to photograph well. That said, there are techniques to capture it in all its glory. Grand Prismatic Spring is one of the world’s few iconic subjects that is best photographed in the harsh light of mid-day, when the reflection from the direct sun most vibrantly brings out the array of colors. Unless you can shoot it from above, looking directly down on the spring, it is best to include some foreground and background elements other than the spring itself, to provide context. Here, I framed the spring through some lodgepole pine trees and included some forests and mountains in the background. Buy this photo

Every visitor to Yellowstone N.P. will stop to observe some geyser eruptions. But instead of just shooting straight on during mid-day into the eruption of a famous geyser like Old Faithful, seek out some of the lesser-known geysers at sunrise and sunset, and compose to include compositional elements other than the eruption itself. This image, a favorite of mine, was made on a geyser basin at sunset. I set up the camera on a steady tripod, set the exposure for a wide depth-of-field, and composed the scene to include the cracked earth and and the reflection of the sunset and eruption within the pools of sulfurous water. Buy this photo

I can hardly wait to return to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks! I’m even more eager to visit during the winter than during the much more crowded summer months. The rich array of scenery, wildlife, and otherworldly geothermal features elevate these parks to the pinnacle of travel photography destinations.

Have you visited Yellowstone and Grand Teton? What did you find most remarkable? What do you recommend your fellow travel photographers shoot while there, and what techniques do you use? Please share your comments here.

Want to read other posts about travel photography destinations around the world? Find them all here: Posts on Destinations.

Please Join Me for a Hands-on Portraiture Workshop: Learn to make beautiful portraits using natural light

Dear Readers,

Learning to capture flattering and eye-catching headshots is a basic requirement for portrait photography.

We will also learn to make full-body and action shots that bring out our subject’s true personality.

Always be on the lookout for special and playful moments.

I emphasize the artistic as well as the technical aspects of portrait photography.

You can see more details and book a session of the class here: Kyle’s workshop on portraiture using natural light. More dates will be added soon. Hope to see you at one of these sessions!

“Building” Your Portfolio [Encore Publication]: Architecture gives local flavor and makes a great subject for your photography

Travel photography is exciting in large part because it encompasses all types of subjects. In a single day while traveling, we may have the opportunity to shoot landscapes of the scenery around us, portraits of the people we meet, wildlife images of the fauna in the region, night images after the sun goes down, and photos of the local architecture. I’ve already covered how to shoot most of these subjects in previous posts. Today we’ll focus on how to make compelling images of architecture, which includes both the exteriors and interiors of the buildings we encounter.

For architectural photography, it is essential to carry a good wide-angle lens. While I’m a big fan of prime (fixed focal-length) lenses, architecture is one subject where a zoom lens comes in very handy. That’s because it can be difficult to change our vantage point when shooting large buildings in crowded urban environments. And when photographing buildings, the widest end of the zoom range should be quite wide, indeed. I recommend a lens that can zoom out to 16mm (for full-frame cameras) or even wider. The lens doesn’t have to be particularly fast, because buildings do not tend to move quickly and we can use a tripod to steady the camera for longer exposure times, but it must be of very high optical quality for architecture photography. Cheaper wide-angle lenses are prone to several kinds of distortion that can lend an unprofessional appearance to photos of buildings. I recommend ponying up for a good professional quality wide-angle zoom lens with a range of somewhere around 16-35mm, or even a fast 14-24mm lens if you have the budget for it.

I use the Nikon 16-35mm f/4 lens for architecture shoots. It’s got great image quality and is very solid and well built, but at f/4 it is not super fast, and it is rather heavy and bulky.

When shooting the exterior of a building with a wide-angle lens, we need to make an effort not to distort the lines of the building or its surroundings. A wide-angle lens, especially when pointed upward, has the tendency to exaggerate features so that parallel lines appear to be divergent. If you have the option of moving to a higher vantage point so you can shoot parallel to the ground instead of upward at the subject, this distortion can be greatly reduced. But for those frequent situations when you have no choice but to look up at a building from the street level, try to zoom out so that the entire subject can be included in the frame without pointing the lens too far upward. This image of a stately old building in Buenos Aires was made with the camera pointed nearly parallel to the ground so that even though a very wide focal length was required to fit the building in the frame, there is relatively little distortion of the perspective.
When using a wide-angle lens from street level, try to keep the camera pointed parallel to the ground to avoid severe distortion of the building’s lines. Buy this photo

In contrast, the next image was shot from a vantage point at the same elevation as the subject, the world’s northernmost church. I climbed a snowy hill in front of Svalbard’s chapel to attain the same height as the center of the building, so that I could hold the camera exactly level to the ground and still include equal amounts of the church above and below the center of the image. This minimized the distortion and resulted in a more natural rendering of this fascinating building.

To make this photo of Svalbard’s church, I chose a vantage point at the same elevation as the midpoint of the building, minimizing distortion. Buy this photo

I like to seek interesting colors and recurring patterns in architecture. The miners’ houses in Svalbard made an intriguing subject because they were lined up in an even line of identical structures, but they varied in color. To make the image more compelling, I moved across the street and shot with a moderate telephoto lens (65mm) to compress the scene and make the houses appear closer together. I based the exposure on the light reflected from the paint on the houses, so that the snow in front of and behind the buildings was nearly blown out. In post-processing I increased the vibrance slightly to bring out the bold colors in this scene.

Look for architectural scenes featuring interesting patterns and colors, such as this view of miners’ cottages in Svalbard surrounded by snow. Buy this photo

Sometimes the most effective images of architecture hone in on the details rather than including the whole of the building. I’m always on the lookout for a characteristic or unusual feature of the buildings around me. In New Orleans’s French Quarter, I framed this shot of a lovely wrought iron balcony using a long telephoto lens so that only this one feature of the building was included.

Zoom in on just the most characteristic or compelling features of a building to make an arresting image of the details rather than the whole building. Buy this photo

Shooting interiors of buildings poses some of the same challenges as shooting their exteriors. In particular, since a wide-angle lens is most often required and is frequently pointed upward, it is important to look at the edges of the viewfinder to try to minimize distortion of the building’s lines. To make this wide-angle image of the inside of a grand mosque in Istanbul, I kept the camera level using a tripod and the camera’s virtual horizon function. There was still a good deal of distortion around the edges of the upper part of the scene, but I was able to control this to some degree by adjusting the images perspective using Lightroom software during post-processing.

This image of the interior of a mosque in Istanbul shows some distortion, but I was able to keep it under control by shooting level to the floor and adjusting the vertical lines using post-processing software. Buy this photo

Do you have tips for shooting the interiors and exteriors of buildings? Please share them here.

Want to read more posts about how to capture amazing images while traveling? Find them all here: Posts on What to Shoot.

Luck Favors the Prepared [Encore Publication]: Tools for planning your shot

It was Louis Pasteur who said, “Fortune favors the prepared mind.” We usually hear the quote paraphrased as, “Luck favors the prepared.” For travel photographers, there is often a great deal of luck involved in capturing a truly great image, but there are some very useful tools that we can use to help us plan to be in the right place at the right time with the right gear. Let’s look at just a few of my favorites.

I’ll start with a quick review of the most obvious resources. I would never plan an hour-long photo shoot, let alone a month-long trip to a far-flung travel destination, without doing some research. What are the must-see locations, and what dates and times of day are perfect for each one? What are the events or activities that most authentically represent the locations I am visiting? Is there a livestock market, a street festival, or a religious celebration taking place while I’m in the region? How can I build an itinerary that best incorporates all of these locations? Great resources for this type of research include guidebooks (online and hardcopy), online review sites such as Trip Advisor and Yelp, mapping and navigation apps (Google Maps is still my all-around favorite, but several others have their own advantages), and local weather sites. I like to build my itinerary by customizing an online map to show all of the locations I’d like to visit, then creating a routing that links the locations in the proper order. If travel by air, rail, bus, or boat is involved, I research those schedules and fares to determine the best way to get from one place to the next. Airline consolidation sites such as Orbitz can be quite helpful for finding the best flights at the best prices. If the itinerary has been pre-planned by a travel company, then I will still do most of this background research to better understand the locations we’ll be visiting.

Once I know where I’ll be going and what events I plan to shoot, I develop a shot list. Some photographers craft very detailed and specific shot lists, but I like to keep it quite flexible and informal, often simply jotting down my ideas in the calendar event on my phone that is associated with each planned shoot. After all, if I adhere too closely to a shot list, I will just end up with the same images that hundreds or thousands of other visitors have captured after doing the same research. Serendipity and the artist’s eye have their place in travel photography, too. The research phase can also inform me as to what clothing, gear, and other essentials I should bring to each location.

Now I’d like to introduce three smartphone apps that I consider indispensable for travel photography. First, there’s Photo Pills, an app that incorporates several essential tools into one package. I use Photo Pills for planning shots where I need to know how to get all the elements, including location, date, and time of day, to come together. For example, during the Perseid Meteor Shower, I wanted to find a dark sky location with a nice foreground and a view toward the galactic core of our Milky Way. This way, I could capture images including the meteor shower, the Milky Way, and the pretty landscape in the foreground. I had a location in mind, a beautiful spot where there isn’t too much light pollution and with a gorgeous view over a reservoir and the Santa Cruz Mountains. The Planner tool in Photo Pills allowed me to visualize the foreground as viewed by my phone’s camera, superimposed against the Milky Way as it would appear on different days and times of day. I planned the shot for a certain time on each of several consecutive days, confirmed that the Milky Way would be rising in the desired direction and that the nearly full moon would have already set, and then waited for clear weather. The first night of the meteor shower was cloudy, but the second night was the charm, and I was able to capture this striking image.
Using the Photo Pills app on my smartphone, I was able to plan in advance for a location, date, and time that would maximize the chances of capturing the Perseid Meteor Shower and Milky Way over the lovely Crystal Springs Reservoir. Buy this photo

Here’s a screenshot of the Planner tool in Photo Pills that I used to prepare for this shoot.

The Photo Pills app has a number of tools to help plan and execute your shots.

Another useful app for planning the best locations, dates, and times for your shoots is TPE (The Photographer’s Ephemeris). I find this tool to be especially helpful for visualizing the path of the sun and moon across the field of view for any location I select. This app is very powerful, and I have only scratched the surface of what it can do to predict and prepare for photo opportunities.

The Photographer’s Ephemeris (TPE) is a powerful tool for planning any outdoor photo shoots.

A final app I will mention here is called Easy Release. Sometimes (read this post for details about model releases), we need a model release when a person or several people are clearly identifiable in a photo. I know some photographers who carry hardcopy model releases with them wherever they travel, but I find this to be cumbersome and impractical when on the road shooting. Instead, I use Easy Release on my phone, so I’m always ready to quickly prepare a release for a new friend to sign when they appear in my images. Even though the app has the ability to translate the text of the release into several languages, there are situations in which it isn’t reasonable to try to explain to a local person what’s in the release and why it’s required. Furthermore, I consider it to be exploitative if the person can’t reasonably be expected to understand what’s in the document or why they should be signing it. But there are times when having immediate access to a model release that can be prepared, signed, and stored right on my phone is a big advantage.

Easy Release is a convenient tool for creating, signing, sharing, and storing model releases when a person is clearly identifiable in photos.

With proper planning using readily available resources and various apps including the ones I’ve presented here, we can be better prepared to maximize our chances of capturing memorable images. Happy shooting, and remember that luck favors the prepared!

Do you have a favorite tool you use to plan for your photo adventures? How have you used this tool to get your shot? Please share your experiences here.

Want to read more posts about tools for planning your travel photography? Find them all here: Posts on Planning.

Focus on Dance Brigade’s “Gracias a la Vida: Love in a Bitter Time” [Encore Publication]: Creative approaches to shooting inspiring performances

Recently, I had the privilege of shooting the dress rehearsal for a new show highlighting 40 years of activism through the arts, presented by San Francisco feminist and multi-cultural dance company, Dance Brigade. Their work was extremely powerful and moving. Not only was it artistically and technically astonishing, but the show was truly inspiring as a testament to the power of artists fighting for social justice. In the current era we need this power to be wielded widely and wisely to balance the widespread injustice all around us.

When shooting work as inspiring as this, I often choose less traditional and more creative approaches to presenting my images. In short, the medium should match the message, so when the message is as powerful as Dance Brigade’s performance, I believe the medium should rise to the occasion. So, in addition to making some traditional documentary images shot looking directly toward the performers with an eye toward capturing the obvious, I also strove to capture some different and unusual perspectives on the performance. I present some of them in the post with short descriptions of my intent for each image.

The usual rules for shooting a live indoor performance still apply. Gain permission to shoot in advance directly from the show’s producer. Use a fast lens and high ISO setting so as to be able to preserve a fast shutter speed to freeze action while still avoiding use of flash, which distracts performers and crew. Turn off your LCD display and check your images only when there’s a break in the action. Use the quietest shutter mode your camera supports. And never use a tripod or monopod unless you have explicit permission from the producer.

Wait for the telling moment: There are instants during live performances that distill the overall message down to its essence. Seek those moments. Buy this photo

Tell a story: Just as a good performance is designed to reveal key messages to the audience at the appropriate time, so should the photographer capture images that disclose the underlying narrative. This image of the climax from a piece on the plight of refugees captures the essence of the story. Buy this photo

Find an unusual perspective: When shooting behind-the-scenes such as at a dress rehearsal, you have the opportunity to find just the right combination of vantage point and lens to make your images really pop. This image was made from the lip of the stage. I had to lean forward across the front of the stage and shoot upward. I love this shot because it captures the artist from her eye level just at a decisive moment in the drama. Buy this photo

Document the power of the performance: This piece started quietly and worked up slowly to a frenzy of pent-up anger and activism. I found the best vantage point and waited for the perfect moment. Buy this photo

Know when to break the basic rules of composition: Sure, most of the time you want to avoid cutting a performer’s head off. But I saw the latent energy inherent in the unorthodox framing of this image. By shooting from the static artist’s level and capturing only part of the jumping artist’s body, I transformed the image into a bolder statement that supported the message of the piece. Buy this photo

Gain perspective: Not every image needs to include the whole environment. Sometimes it’s more powerful to capture just the salient part. Buy this photo

Capture a moment of pure joy: Shoot lots of images so that you can choose the ones that really make an impact. The bold colors, shallow depth-of-field, and simple composition of this image work to emphasize the dancer’s aura of joyful triumph. Buy this photo

Use black-and-white: This image cried out for me to convert it to monochrome. Its raw documentary power and gritty, graphic nature are more compelling in black-and-white. Buy this photo

Don’t be afraid to use selective focus: It’s okay for certain elements of your subject not to be in sharp focus. I chose a narrow depth-of-field in order to obtain selective focus on just the performers in the middle of this triumphant circle. The soft focus on the dancers in the foreground and far background only serve to enhance the dramatic power of the image. Buy this photo

I hope this essay provides some ideas for how to shoot creative images that amplify the power of your message. Modern digital photography provides us with so many tools for making images that go beyond the pure documentary function to also enchant our viewers with imagination. A performance as moving as Dance Brigade’s “Gracias a la Vida: Love in a Bitter Time” deserves more than a straightforward narrative capture. I tried to make some images that supported their messaging with a creative visual style. Continue to capture the obvious message in your images, but keep shooting to go beyond the documentary. Go wild, and see what you can achieve!

How do you go beyond the obvious to capture images that pop? Please share your ideas here?

Want to read more posts about what to shoot while traveling or near home? Find them all here: Posts on What to Shoot.

Capturing the Creative Process [Encore Publication]: How to document an artist’s work using your own artistic vision

Capturing images of the performing arts is a specialty of mine, as well as one of my absolute favorite genres of photography. But as gratifying as I find documenting live performances of dance, music, or theater, there’s a whole higher level of photographic joy available from capturing the artist’s creative process before their work reaches a public audience. Today’s post focuses on a recent behind-the-scenes shoot that I did for a friend and longtime collaborator, Arina Hunter.

I arranged to shoot her dress rehearsal just before the first of two public performances as part of San Francisco’s SAFEhouse for the Arts RAW (Resident Artist Workshop) program. Arina was preparing to perform an untitled work-in-progress which was quite complicated technically, so it was fascinating to watch her process of making artistic decisions and readying herself and the technical crew for the evening’s show.

Read on to see some of my favorite images from the rehearsal, accompanied by a few thoughts about my own artistic and technical process that went into the capture of Arina’s work.

All of these images are available for sale on my website. Just click on any image to view them in the online gallery.

The creative process is about more than just practicing for a performance. Try to include some wider views depicting the artist’s full environment including equipment, sets, and performance space.

The flip side is that it’s also important to get up-close and to capture the physical work that goes into preparing for a performance.

Shoot plenty of frames to maximize the chances of capturing the “decisive moment” when the artist’s work comes together as an integrated whole.

Typically there are several different moods evoked in a single piece of art. This image captures a vulnerability and poignancy that informed Arina’s work even as much of her physical performance exudes strength. Finding the right perspective to convey each mood is key to making successful images.

When post-processing my images, I ask myself how can my own technique best convey the artist’s intention. For this image I decided a monochrome conversion would best render Arina’s physicality at this precise moment during her process. Freeing the viewer from the anchor of color perception, a black-and-white image is graphic and timeless and allows us to focus on what is elemental: form, contrast, shadow, and light.

I shot this image from a low perspective near the ground so as to juxtapose Arina’s body with the projected video image on the wall. Always look for a different perspectives while shooting that can create compositions to get across your intent.

Another example of perspective: To make this image I climbed on top of a chair and shot down on Arina in her performance space.

Sometimes the details convey the story better than the whole. This closeup of Arina’s paint-covered hand framed by colorful canvas makes a powerful summary of her performance piece.

Today’s post has been a bit more conceptual and less technical than most of my posts. The purpose is to get you thinking about how our own art of photography can be harnessed to capture the creative process of other artists. The next time you are privileged to get to shoot an artist at work, think about how you can apply elements such as composition, perspective, color, texture, empty space, motion, and stasis to capture compelling images of the artist’s own vision!

Do you have techniques you’ve used to document other artists’ creative process? Please share your thoughts here.

Want to read other posts about photographic techniques? Find them all here: Posts about techniques.

News Flash: Google Removes Popular “View Images” Button [Encore Publication]: Why google removed this feature and what it means for photographers

Two days ago, Google rather quietly removed a very popular feature from its search functionality. As part of a legal settlement with the powerful Getty Images stock photography agency, the search behemoth has agreed to remove the “view images” button that appeared whenever a search result included images. Clicking on this button would open the image directly in the user’s browser, allowing them to bypass a visit to the website containing the matched image. Now that word is getting out about this popular feature being removed, the Internet is up in arms, with thousands crying foul and lambasting both companies for this decision. In today’s post, I focus instead on what this change means for photographers and other intellectual property owners. And guess what? It’s a good thing, not a bad thing.

The Web is a mixed bag for photographers. On the one hand, the Web offers us an instantaneous and inexpensive way for our work to be seen by potentially billions of people around the world. For professional photographers, the technology allows us to deliver work to clients, share our art, and make new sales with relatively little cost or effort. On the other hand, the Web also makes it incredibly easy for people to steal our work. I recently conducted a reverse image search on one of my most popular (and valuable) images, the multiple international-award-winning shot of an alligator with its reflection in the waters of a Louisiana bayou, and found that it currently lives in more than 300 places around the world on the Internet. A few dozen of those sites are authorized to use my image, such as legitimate news agencies reporting on my having won the awards and certain clients to whom I have licensed the right to use the image, but nearly all of the sites’ publishers are using my work without permission. In other words, they are thieves.

For photographers, our images represent countless hours of hard work, the application of our talent accrued over a lifetime, considerable financial investment in gear and travel, and for professionals, our livelihood. The fact that it is convenient and easy to steal our work does not make it ethical or legal to do so. By removing a search results feature that made theft extremely easy, Google has taken a serious step toward protecting intellectual property rights.

Of course it is still quite easy to grab images off the Web if you have a mind to. You can click on the “visit page” button in the Google search results, find the image on the website, and right-click on it to save it on your device. Photographers can make that process a bit harder by adding right-click protection to remind would-be thieves that the image is copyrighted, but there are plenty of ways to get around this protection.

The recent move by Google therefore won’t end the problem of digital image theft overnight, but it’s a good step in the right direction. Image sharing and legitimate use is preserved, while making things just a tad harder for those who knowingly or unknowingly want to steal other people’s images off the Web.

Google has simultaneously ended the “Search By Image” button that popped up when a user opened an image. I have mixed feelings about this decision, also a result of the settlement with Getty Images. While this feature could be used by thieves who want to find un-watermarked copies of photos somewhere on the Web, it’s also very useful for photographers who need to know where our images are appearing around the world. Fortunately, you can still use this feature simply by dragging the image into the search bar at the top of your browser’s screen.

I hope this post from a working photographer’s perspective will help defuse some of the animus hurled against Google from angry Internet users. Removing the “View Images” button doesn’t solve all intellectual property theft in one simple move, but it is a reasonable step toward the goal of protecting image copyrights, and that’s a good thing for us photographers and, ultimately, for all users of images. Because if photographers can’t make a living selling our work, very soon there won’t be any pro-quality images out there.

Do you agree with my viewpoint? Or do you have a differing opinion? Please share your comments here!

Want to read my earlier post about what to do if your images are stolen? Find it here: What to do if your images are stolen.

What I’m Thankful For [Encore Publication]: An opinionated list of my top five photographic blessings

At dinner on the American Thanksgiving holiday each year, the members of my family go around the table sharing our lists of what we’re thankful for. This is a common tradition, and I find it energizing, comforting, and occasionally challenging to learn from my wife and daughters and any other family and friends gathered for the feast what they consider to be their greatest blessings. So for this Thanksgiving Day post, I’m going to share a photographic what-I’m-thankful-for list. Of our many modern photographic blessings, here is one photographer’s very opinionated list of the top five.

Jumping for joy over the brave new world of photography in which we live

Instant image review: Those of us who cut our photographic teeth in the film era became accustomed to waiting for days to see the results of our work. After shooting a roll of film, we would package it up, mail it to the lab, and receive our transparencies or prints back in a few days. If we botched the exposure, focus, composition, or any other element of the image, we wouldn’t know until it was too late to recreate the shot. For travel photographers, event photographers, and photojournalists, this was an especially harsh situation, as those once-in-a-lifetime moments would be lost forever if even a small setting was incorrect. In today’s digital world, we get to preview each image instantly on our camera’s LCD display as it is captured. If any aspect of the image is less than ideal, we can immediately retake it. The built-in real-time histogram featured in many advanced cameras makes the instantaneous image review even more powerful, as we can see at a glance whether the exposure is in the expected range. It’s so easy to take this capability to instantly review our images for granted, and many modern photographers do abuse it (pros call it “chimping” when a photographer constantly looks up and down at the LCD screen while shooting), but I am grateful every day to have this feature available.
Modern full-frame image sensors: If you’d have told me when I was a kid that 40 years later we’d be able to instantly choose any sensitivity for our shooting needs from ISO 50 through ISO 25,000 and even higher, I’d have asked what you were smoking. Same with the concept of a camera that can capture many times the resolution of what was possible on the most fine-grained 35mm films. Ditto for the idea that our camera could focus for us, even under low-light situations with fast-moving action, faster and more accurately than we could achieve focus ourselves. Or that we could just hold down our finger on the shutter release and the camera would shoot 10 or more frames per second with almost no limit to the number of images that could be stored. All of this would have sounded like science fiction, yet modern full-frame image sensors provide all of these capabilities and much more. My Nikon D810 bodies are so good at capturing images in nearly any genre of photography that I can’t imagine anything working better. But of course every two to three years a whole new generation of sensors is released that does everything better still.
The Nikon 85mm f/1.8 lens: We have so many incredible optics for which to be thankful that it’s hard to single out just one. But there is one piece of glass that makes my heart sing with joy every day. It’s inexpensive, small, light, fast as lightning, sharp as a razor blade, and renders accurate colors and glorious bokeh. I do about 80% of my shooting with prime lenses, and probably two-thirds of that is with this one lens. And that lens is the Nikon 85mm f/1.8 lens. It’s a classic for making portraits but also works great for sports, wildlife, and even many landscapes. If only everything else in life were so satisfying!
Lightroom: Even with today’s amazing camera and lens capabilities, few images emerge perfectly from the camera. Most images need some tender loving care during post-processing, and for my workflow needs, Adobe’s Lightroom software is perfect. It’s great at importing, culling, and organizing huge batches of photos, and it’s editing features are all I need for more than 90% of my images. Lightroom “thinks” the way a professional or enthusiast photographer thinks, and it’s quite intuitive to apply presets and/or automated batch tools to develop large numbers of images at once. Thinking back on the old days of post-processing photos in a darkroom, I find that the digital counterpart (called “Lightroom” for good reason!) is so much faster, more powerful, and more gratifying.
Instantaneous global sharing: Once our images are looking just the way we want them to, it’s time to share them with others. Not long ago, this was a burdensome task. It cost a lot of time, money, and aggravation to distribute just a few images with just a few people. Now, with digital image capture, the Internet to distribute the images, and mobile devices with social media to view them, the world is at our fingertips. There is a downside to this ubiquitous image sharing: we working professional photographers see the value of our work eroded by the flood of photos cascading around the world 24 hours a day; but in net this is a profoundly powerful and valuable asset to the art and business of photography.

Almost anywhere in the world we are immersed in a sea of images, making sharing them instantaneous, cheap, and far-reaching

There’s never been a better time to be a photographer (at least from an image capture and sharing standpoint; don’t get me started on the financial aspects), and in this exponentially evolving digital, interconnected world, it’s only going to keep getting better.

What are you thankful for in this brave new world of photographic goodies? Please share your thoughts here.

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

Capturing the Creative Process: How to document an artist’s work using your own artistic vision