I’m absolutely thrilled and honored to have a 6 page spread in the current Amateur Photographer! And what great timing with our upcoming UK Duxord Aviation World War II Photographic Experience event comin up. Highlights some of what you’ll photograph, learn and experience! Thanks, Amateur Photographer!
So, can you use a shallow depth of field with a big subject? That’s a really good question because it comes down to defining, “What’s the subject” which for many is hard to say. Yet this is the essential question we must ask every time we go click! Once we can define in our own mind what the subject is, we can define it in the viewfinder and from there determine what is the best f/stop, depth of field we want. And at that moment decide if we can go shallow with big.
Here are two examples from this past weekend at Neighbors Day at Felts Field, Spokane where I thought going shallow with big was the only right answer. I wanted the Laird to POP from that background so I shot at f1.4 (shooting with the 105f1.4). The DC-3, with all that type, shooting wide open was easy because the mind can still read all of the type but it first focuses on the American Flag where I focused the lens. So ya, once you know the subject, you can define it and easy show it going shallow if it’s big!
Ricky
captured by D5 / 105f1.5AFS / SB-5000 / Lightbox
My portrait of Ricky has brought a few questions so wanted to explain the process of getting the final photo. When it comes to flash, I’m not real speedy, I have to think about it before I act. It starts with thinking through the story I want it to help tell. This means I have to look at the subject, the background and how I want to move the eye around the frame. In this case Ricky is the subject in our story, the pilot about to launch in his Stinson L-5 on a mission on what appears to be a stormy day. So the key elements when it comes to light are Ricky, Plane & Sky. Above is the final shot, here’s how I got there.
Rickey #1
captured by D5 / 105f1.4AFS
Often I start by taking a shot of the main elements as they lay to see what strengths and weaknesses the “set” has before I start going crazy. Being use to being a one man band when it comes to lighting, I just don’t want to make extra work for myself. At the same time when working with aircraft, lights and light stands need to be secured so they can’t damage an aircraft by blowing or falling into them. So with that in mind, I took the first photo of Ricky. I shooting with the D5 / 105f1.4AFS thinking I wanted to have Ricky larger in the frame and the L-5 more out of focus. As you can see from the two above photos I changed my mind bigtime. You can also see that there is an issue with the light when it came to the subject. There is useable light on one side of Ricky’s face but not the other. From this I knew the flash would be the key light, the ambient the fill.
Rickey #1
captured by D5 / 105f1.4AFS / SB-5000
Flash was needed so I put a SB-5000 in the hotshoe. I did this for two reasons, first was to see the effect of adding light and second to demonstrate how in the hotshoe in this instance it was a really bad idea. Just because you can add light doesn’t mean doing so makes the photo better. After these two shots, it was obvious that first I wanted to walk backwards changing the subject / background relationship. Then simply putting the SB-5000 in a Lightbox just out of frame on the right we could better to meld the key and ambient light. What’s important is the flash has a horizontal orientation and not vertical so the light falls off quickly down Ricky’s side (those aren’t pilot shoes!). And while I had the basic idea in my head how I wanted the final photograph to look, when flash gets involved I have to think it through. If you’d like to see more how I think through flash, you might want to check out my KelbyOne Pilot Portrait class. So now you know after 20 minutes how I got there.
B-25s “Betty’s Dream” & “God & Country”
captured by D5 / 70-200f4 AFS
To me, nothing can visually express the magic of flight quite like clouds! We can’t help ourselves but look up and take note of clouds and as they float past us in the heavens, we can’t but think of the vastness of our skies. In bringing life, flight and romance to our aviation photography, nothing does it better nor simpler than clouds in the frame. With that said, being selective when you have the opportunity to include clouds helps refine your story and that romance.
Last week we had a three and a half hour ferry flight with B-25s Texas Flying Legends “Betty’s Dream” and Mid America’s “God & Country.” During that time we experienced everything from bald skies, ground scuz and building cumulous clouds. Each presented varying photographic opportunities from none to buffer filling! Might sound hard to believe but we were selective in our shooting, Brent coming back with 500GB of video and I with 9k stills. That’s because not all clouds are created equally.
Here are just four examples of what I’m referring to giving you an idea for your own photography. What am I lookin for? When you have “holes” in the clouds, I love being able to see through those holes back to earth. But the background is still very important and can’t be full of humanity. As the density of clouds build, there are other factors that come into play.
The first thing you might notice in the captions is I change up focal length. Just how much cloud do you want in the frame? Cloud character is really important to me. The examples here are ones with character. Character has to do with shape as well as density, whites and blacks. A solid carpet of white is visually boring and not at all romantic. Blue strip of sky can be distracting. Is there a guide to what works and what doesn’t? If you think about it while shooting and avoid getting swept up in it all, you will see the differences. The issue is that once you go by that perfect cloud, it’s gone! There is no going back as it all changes way too fast. You gotta be looking ahead, thinking it through and then rip when you see the best clouds. So for every cloud shot I like, there are at least a dozen in the series and I’m picking the best back at the computer. That’s a lot going on in an air to air, the background when it includes clouds complicates that in the challenge of making your favorite shot. That’s simply because, not all clouds are created equally!
Lt Col Dick Cole
Doolittle Raider
Seventy-five years ago today, 80 airmen in 16 B-25Bs launched from the USS Hornet to attack mainland Japan. Pearl Harbor was fresh in everyone’s memory and even though the damage from the raid was thought to be a token at best, the boost to the US moral was immeasurable. In Dayton, OH today at 14:30, eleven B-25 will flyover the USAF Museum to pay their respect and tribute to the Doolittle Raiders and thank them for their sacrifice for our freedoms. Lt Col Dick Cole, 101 years old, is the last of the eighty Raiders and is will be present for the ceremonies. We feel very honored to know Dick and being able to call him friend. He’s not just a piece of living history and a hero, but he’s incredibly funny! We feel incredibly fortunate to be part of the crew of the B-25 “Betty’s Dream” and here to be part of this amazing celebration. We owe all our vets a tribute and I’m glad we are saying thanks to this very special vet!
The 11 B-25s present for 75th Reunion
SBD Dauntless
captured by D4s / 80-400VR3
It seems like such a small thing, and it is, but a simple nudge of a subject in the frame can make all the difference. Personally, I’m going to make that nudge in the viewfinder because I use ever pixel in telling my visual storytelling. When you have a static subject like a rock or stamp, it’s much easier and safer to move the subject around in the viewfinder to find the place you like it the best. But when the subject is moving like the SBD Dauntless here, you gotta know where you want the subject and commit quickly. You can see in these two frame to frame images how much the background changes in a matter of seconds. How do you make the choice of subject placement in a split second?
SBD Dauntless
captured by D4s / 80-400VR3
There is no silver bullet for this one for a couple of reasons. The biggest is YOU as it is your photograph, your story. Next you have to consider the end use. Placement in the frame for a photograph going on the wall could be totally different if the same photo is for a magazine article. Finally there is the subject itself. Why in this case of the photos of the SBD do I prefer the top image over the bottom one? If you’re saying it’s because the bottom image is centered, that’s not the answer. I have NO problem with centered subjects when the elements in the frame support it. In this case, I prefer the top frame because it gives a hint of the type of aircraft the SBD is, a dive bomber. That slight gesture of the SBD (created in part by titling the camera body) and its placement in the frame is why I like it best. To tell its story it didn’t take much, it takes just a nudge.
