Oct 30, 2012 | Landscape Photography
The Statue of Liberty is so iconic, so majestic, so New York and simply SO cool to photograph! During our B&H / Lexar Photofloat, we had the opportunity to go right up to the Grand Lady for an up close frontal shoot. The skies were perfect as we floated past and if I had any compliant, we couldn’t stop too long in any one place so the background was constantly changing from our movement. With the Nikon D4 and Nikon 70-200VR2, I shot as fast as I could when I had a moment between talking to folks. And in the process, that internal strife kicked in, Vertical or Horizontal format? I shot both ways many times as the background kept changing. I liked what I got but I say on some other photographer’s LCD better shots as they shot at times I couldn’t It was interesting to see that of all the shots I liked of the others, they were all, 100% horizontal format. The background is everything!
Oct 29, 2012 | Landscape Photography
Our snow storm last week cleaned out a lot of the remaining fall color on the eastside. There are a couple of pockets of color though, those areas that were protected from our fierce winds. During our weekend workshop, we visited one such pocket of color and as you can see, it was bursting! Well, it was for about a block as on either end, it was just bare trees. Now how do you approach such a shooting opportunity? Normally fall color is captured at some distance and is just an element in a photograph. This calls for distance and long glass or up close with wide angle. But if in a scenario like this, if you ask yourself that all important question, “What’s the subject?” you might come up with a different answer in telling the story of the moment.
If in a canyon there is one small spot that is an explosion of color, how do you say explosion of color? Personally, I get in close physically and tight optically to start with. Shooting with the D4 & 70-200VR2 mostly at 200mm, I got right in on the color. To make that color even more explosive, I shot backlit and I mean, backlit! We were shooting right into the sun! Most were going blind because we were doing that and all were struggling with the sun coming basically right down the barrel. This created flare up the wazoo! That flare flattened the contrast and the contrast is essential in making the photo happen. Spent some time either shading lenses for folks or showing them how to hold their baseball cap on their lens to extend their shade. Then to finish the feel, in ACR, I dropped the Black slider just a tad and something I almost never do, took the Saturation slider to 15. I love this type of fall color shooting, it’s just happy photographs!
Oct 26, 2012 | Landscape Photography
I’m not sure what I enjoy more, photographing flowing water or, listening to the water as I’m photographing it. Whatever the case, I do enjoy it. The process of capturing flowing water, I illustrated a few weeks ago and it hasn’t been modified so far since then. And when it comes to time spent at a location, the reason why I park at times in one location for so long I expressed in this post. And while what I want to talk about now, I’ve taked about before, I wanted to elaborate on a bit more by telling the story of one afernoon. Much of what I want to talk about is summed up in this photo.
This is Flume Gorge in the White Mountains, NH. During our K&M Adventures a couple of weeks ago, we ventured to the Gorge the first time in the mid afternoon. The light was OK at best but the crowds, oh my lord! There wasn’t a place to wedge a pixel into! We didn’t stop, we just kept on driving to another gorgeous locale.
The next day, all bundled up to embrace the cold, we headed over to the Cog Railroad to get a ride to the top of Mt Washington. A great ride, we were really looking forward to it. We got there to see the cloud ceiling getting lower, the winds higher, snow blustering and the railroad only running 3/4 up the mountain. After shooting around the railroad for an hour, we packed it in and went back down the mountain. The light was dark, it was raining by the time we got down the mountain. The choice was either head back to the lodge or….I said let’s go back to the Flume. Off we went. We arrived 30min later about an hour before sunset (though we couldn’t see the sun) to a basically empty parking lot. Up the hill we went. It was raining, foggy, empty and gorgeous in the gorge! The story doesn’t lie here either
The higher we climbed into the gorge, the more we got into the clouds and the more gorgeous it all became. With that rain, there wasn’t a dry rock to be found anywhere (dry rocks suck) and the color in them was spectacular! We got up to the Flume proper and the magic was happening everywhere we turned. It just goes to show, the worst weather can produce the best photography. That’s still not the point.
The group sets up their tripods, we dialed in our exposures (these are 5sec blurs) and we had just settled down to shoot this unbelievable scene before us when…the hords show up! Seriously, I felt like I was in Africa when the Water Buffalo are crossing the river as the hords of people just kept going by! The tripods were vibrating off the bridge! Where in the hell did they come from? The light levels were falling, we didn’t have the luxury of time, what do you do? I just kept shooting and shooting and shooting. I knew some images would be soft, even deleted some in camera knowing when I pushed the shutter release they would be soft. Heck, in the top image, you can see ghosts of the folks walking right through the exposure. And still I kept shooting and loving every moment of it! Photographic opportunities like the one we were experiencing don’t happen everyday. I was shooting with my best friend making some rather crud but poignant jokes about our situations and listening to the roar of the Flume shooting some images I loved.
And that’s the point! When it’s raining, your shoot goes down the drains and you’re having to make lemonade, even after finding success at that you still find yourself in less that ideal shooting conditions, you still find joy in that moment behind the camera. It’s hard at times when you’ve invested so much in finding that moment behind the camera only to have something “spoil” it. But you’ve still gotta enjoy that moment. Because not everyone gets to do it, we are fortunate we can scratch out that moment. And while I couldn’t believe the misfortune of that hord descending upon us, it did make me smile to watch them in the rain, enjoy being out in our wild heritage. I’m a firm believer the photos will happen when they are meant to happen and not before. It’s our mission to be there when they do and then celebrate that moment with others in the images we do capture! That’s shooting the flume!
Oct 22, 2012 | Landscape Photography
Home for just heartbeat but in time to see the fall color being dressed in white. The drive home was spectacular and then woke up this morning to all white. Sharon being the mtn women she is had the house all ready (thanks dear) since I’ve been on the road the last 3 weeks.
This is a simple click off the deck looking out with the D600 & 24-70AFS. Some have taken note of my saying I recommend the D600 over the D800 to folks. Working on a piece explaining why but it has really nothing to do with image quality, both bodies preform great in that department. It really has a lot more to do with that simple but essential element in photography, fun. Well, got home to a computer being real sick, so back to playing computer tech.
Oct 19, 2012 | Landscape Photography
From the water with that amazing backdrop, the New York skyline was better than picture perfect! Today, it’s pouring rain in NYC, during the MooseCruise Photofloat though, it was simply spectacular! It was one of those times when working with big guns like B&H and Lexar really paid off since participants only paid $25 for this killer three hour tour of delight!
Have to be really honest, it was really hard shooting! Simply put, I couldn’t shoot fast enough to capture all the great views! I filed 1426 images yesterday and I was teaching! At every foot of the trip, new photo opps appeared. I was attracted to the overall shot of course, but real quickly I was looking at the details. I would start wide (shooting D4 w/70-200 at 70mm) and then slowly zoom in to get tight.
Being on a boat had a ying and a yang. The ying is you’re shooting from the water so you can see the whole view, much like shooting in a forest. In the midst of the forest, hard to tell the story of all the trees. Step back just a little bit to the edge and you can tell it all. Same with a city like NYC which has its own man made valleys.
The yang of working on a boat is, it’s always moving. You never have the opportunity for the same image twice let alone fixing a mistake. On the flip side, as the boat floats on down the Hudson, we got multiple views and lighting patterns on buildings. These shots of the Freedom Tower is just such an example of that. And look at that light! OMG!!! The light was magical that entire cruise! This made finishing real simple, just a quick click on my Preset in ACR and I was done. Simply an amazing day. mtc
Oct 19, 2012 | Landscape Photography
On a gorgeous fall day in NYC, 433 photographers gathered for the largest shooting event in B&H history. Sponsored by Lexar, we headed out for a 3 hour tour circling Manhattan. We had the greatest folks! Before we even sailed, I headed out to the line and meet them all. Talk about a hoot, there were folks who had flown in from Seattle to join us. How cool is that?
Even though I said I was going to wear a pirate hat, eye patch and have a sword (the ear ring was not my idea), I don’t think anyone thought I would actually go through with it. Surprise!
And the lovely lady who’s idea it was and who made it all happen, Jesica simply rocks! And she looks much better in the hat than I did! mtc
