May 9, 2011 | Field Reports
Erik Hildebrandt’s latest book Fly Navy, Celebrating the First Century of Naval Aviation is simply a masterpiece! No matter what interest level you wanna talk about, this book hits them all. The most obvious is aviation interest, the photography is simply gorgeous! While photographing modern military is something I’m personally not readily involved in, I sure can appreciate the photography and even more, all that went into the photography. What if you’re into portrait photography? Erik does a marvelous job telling a story in every portrait in the book which I think is outstanding. It’s one thing to take a portrait because you can, it’s another to take one that tells a story about the person you’re photographing. I’m learning lots from Erik on that front. What about taking photos of the same old subject in a whole new way? Erik goes there as well and beautifully! How? You’ll have to get a copy of the book and see for yourself but I think that’s worth the cover price all by itself. Oh yeah, then there’s the history in the photographs and the text, not too shabby either. I preordered the book back in Dec and couldn’t wait for it’s release. It was worth the wait and a whole lot more!
May 9, 2011 | Field Reports
In my 30yrs I’ve been very fortunate to be part of many ground breaking technologies. The last one turned out pretty big when in 1999 I started pushing this little thing, digital photography. Well, I think the next thing is here, digital publishing and we at WRP are up to our eyeballs in it on both sides. A great example of digital publsihing is Airplanista, a digital magazine that has bucked the system and is moving forward (actually, there are a number of digital aviation mags). If you’ve not noticed the print editorial market is shrinking and with it your opportunity to not only get published, but possibly make a living from your photography. Digital Publishing I not only think will reverse this trend, but will end up being even bigger but we’ve gotta start supporting it NOW! You can start by taking advantage of “charter” subscription specials like Airplanista is offering. You can get it for a year for only $9.95 and read it anywhere from your notebook to iPad to iPhone to any smartphone. Let’s start supporting these publications and be part of the future!
May 6, 2011 | Field Reports
I really, really, really do appreciate you all thinking I was smart enough to figure out how these cool “video stills” were created. But I am no where near smart enough. But I’m smart enough to know who could figure out how to create them, my really good friend and Photoshop Wizard Russell Brown! Back when Scott Kelby originally posted the link to these gems, I sent it off to Russell and asked him how there were done. I had an idea but surely didn’t know the steps. In less then a week, Russell not only figured out how to these are made, but produced a video so you can create them yourself! Where’s the video?
Click Here!
Now this is not for the faint of heart, it does take not only some skill but good photographic skills and imagination. I wanna thank my good friend Russell for not only figuring out this process and willing to share it, but for also creating the video teaching the technique. Damn cool!
May 5, 2011 | Field Reports
For the life of me, I can’t remember the critter but I know it was a bird. I had been shooting all day with the 600mm on a tripod and getting some really cool stuff, biology that hadn’t been recorded before. I was really excited, too excited as it turned out. When the film came back (yeah, this was a while ago), all the images were soft. The pile of slides in the trash can got taller and taller and my spirits sank further and further. It was a disaster and there was nothing I could do about it. I felt like shit!
I’ve not had that experience since, it is amazing how such an event seared into my head to always press my eye against the eyecup for proper long lens technique. But the human psyche is a funny place. This past weekend another photographer had a once in a lifetime opportunity and, at least in his mind, toasted it by making a typical, what I call, pilot error. Did they know it at the time, this big mistake? Nope, they were so caught up in the amazing moment that they missed an important aspect to shooting so when later that night they looked at their images, they experienced the horrible sick feeling that inflicts photographers when they screwed up.
The next day is the worse, especially if you’ve gotta shoot again. You put that camera up to the eye and all that “failure” from the day before comes crashing back. You often put the camera right back down again, not even taking that shot. You question your worth, wonder why you’re up early again when you blew the opportunity the day before. You question the very reason you’re a photographer. It’s just a really bad day!
And if you haven’t made this mistake, in my opinion you need to! If you’ve not had a major screw up like this, then your photography suffers. You can’t go back and retake a photo (unless it’s in the studio, a subject that’s not living and the light bulbs didn’t blow), it’s over with and life has moved on. You’ve gotta grasp that thought and move on yourself. And if you don’t learn two important lessons from the incident, you are sure to live it again. The first thing you learn, never make that same mistake again (though there are plenty of new ones we can make). Second, that it’s only a photograph!
Now I’m speaking from experience here, don’t have to make this stuff up. We put one heck of a lot of pressure on ourselves when we go out shooting. It can manifest itself from being cranky to the sweats and everything in between. It is, to wrap it up in a big bow when we put this kind of pressure on ourselves, no fun! So then why do we do it, put all that pressure on that click? The fear of failure? I know that was my issue for a long time, especially when I was young and new to this thing. I had to prove myself to someone that I knew what I was doing. Of course, as you get older you realize there is no one to prove yourself to, except yourself!
To this day, I really hate missing a photograph. I really get the maddest when I have an amazing opportunity and I have some type of equipment failure. Those are preventable a lot of the time so the anger while it might be focused on that particular piece of gear, reality soon kicks in and it’s pointed inward. The one difference though for myself today when this happens is, I can blow it off much faster and often relish going back for the second time. A long time ago when I made my first Blog Poster Action, I toasted the action and lost it. I was so pissed at myself. I emailed by friend Peter Bower at the NAPP Help desk and asked if there was any way I could rescue the lost Action. His response is something I often think about, “You make it better the second time.”
If it’s meant to be, those golden photographic moments do return to us. We are older, wiser and often better equipped in every sense to do an even better job the second time. So don’t let the failures of photography get you down. Rather, embrace them and let them make you smile knowing that you are human, you’ll learn from it and that with time, the photo gods will put that opportunity in front of your lens again!
May 4, 2011 | Field Reports
The Alaska Marmot doing what it does best. Enjoy!
Photo captured by D3x, 600VR w/TC-20eIII on Lexar UDMA digital film
May 4, 2011 | Field Reports
Mark, just so you know I was thinking of you. For the rest of the world, I retwitted a Scott Kelby find of these moving postcards and it so intrigued me, well you can see the result. This is from the Platte River last year, the Sandhill Cranes coming in at sunset. Just darn fun….and the secret….that comes later :-)
Photo captured by D3s, 600VR on Lexar UDMA digital film
