Kristina
This is good news. Kristina wrote this afternoon to tell me her modeling agency wants to use this image as her main commercial shot for their website. Modeling agencies are very particular about the type and quality of images they use, so this made my day!
Journalist James Foley. Photo by Rick Wood.
Back in the 80s I was a freelance photographer and writer for the Yukon Review, a small town newspaper in Oklahoma. As a part time journalist I didn’t face anything more dangerous than the possibility of being run over by a football player while I took photographs from the sidelines. I did get to rub shoulders with and learn from some fine professionals and I feel a certain kinship to the profession. It saddens me to note the passing of each “conflict journalist”, the brave souls who put themselves in harms way to bring us stories from the war torn parts of the world.
Kristin, Piano Reflection.
Ansel Adams, a classically trained concert pianist who became a world class landscape photographer, often said “The negative is similar to a musician’s score, and the print to the performance of that score”. Adams was right. Today we might say the digital camera file is the score and the work in the digital darkroom is the performance. The click of the shutter is an important step in the photographic process but not the end of the process.
Kristin with a backdrop and backdrop stand.
Sometimes I haul a lot of equipment to a portrait shoot. I have worked with a lot of models and I’ve noticed that only about 1 out of 10 offers to help carry my photo gear. So an offer to help with my gear usually takes me by surprise and I take note of the thoughtfulness. This young woman is one of the 10%.
Kim Eung Hwa Korean Dance Company
If you are looking for bright, colorful subjects to photograph, head for the nearest festival. If you live in one of the nation’s big cities, there are probably several major festivals to choose from. If you don’t, do a little research. Google is your friend.
Digital Contact Sheet
There are a lot of reasons photographers create “visual reminder photos”. It’s not unusual for me to hand my camera to someone else to take pictures. When I do, I usually leave myself a visual reminder by taking a picture of my hand before and after the other person’s photos. Visual reminder photos can also be used to mark panos and other photos you need to find quickly and easily. One sports photographer I met used them to mark touchdowns and other critical plays. With a photo of the receiver high in the air catching the football (and no field markings due to the angle of the photo), it may not be obvious later (amidst hundreds of other photos) that this particular catch was a touchdown, or set up a game winning play. Some news photographers use visual reminders to quickly find special photos or favorites they want to locate later. During fast moving events it takes too long to write a “fav 2457” note on a 3×5 card. It is so much faster to create a visual reminder photo right after photo #2457.
World Ranger Day
Happy World Ranger Day!
Over many years and at many national parks and monuments I have had good encounters with helpful rangers and other employees of the U.S. National Park Service as well as park rangers in Canada. Today is a good day for me to say thanks to park rangers and other park service employees for the excellent work they do.
Images of Colorado. Photo information below. Click to see a larger version.
I am very excited about my upcoming nature photography workshop in Estes Park Colorado and field trips in Rocky Mountain National Park.
Saturday Workshop and Evening Field Trip – Sep 27
The Saturday workshop is a fast paced, fun filled, action packed day, combining intensive classroom explorations with several “go out and shoot” moments to practice the techniques you are learning. The Saturday workshop includes an evening field trip in Rocky Mountain National Park. The Saturday workshop and field trip are limited to 12 participants to allow for plenty of interaction.
Spider with pea in a kitchen sink
I found this common house spider in our kitchen sink, hanging on to this pea which was suspended from an overnight web. The spider wasn’t moving at all so I touched it gently with the tip of a pen to see if it was alive. It quickly ran up a strand of its web. I left it alone and it eventually came back to the object of it’s interest, the pea. It was time to take some pictures.
Most of these have been around for a long time, but they are still effective. And cheap!
Amazon’s initial “in stock” statement.
A two day book delivery promise from Amazon can turn into 2 1/2 weeks. Or longer.
Portrait in the Park
This photo is pretty close to a “to do” list for portrait photography. Focus on the eyes. Shoot in soft light. Have the face at a slight angle. Use a short telephoto focal length. Have the camera lens just above eye level. Use a non-obtrusive background. Give the subject something to do. Move in close for extra impact. Portrait rules to be followed and broken. So when do you follow the rules and when do you break them?
Red Winged Blackbird, composite image
When you just can’t get the right pose out of a wildlife subject, compositing two images together may be just the right ticket to the image you want.
Sisters.
The best way to insure excellent color in a portrait is to begin by setting a custom white balance on the camera, but that isn’t always practical. That’s when Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) comes to the rescue.
NASA Apollo 11 Astronaut Buzz Aldrin Walking on the Moon
Photo details: Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, lunar module pilot, walks on the surface of the Moon near the leg of the Lunar Module (LM) “Eagle” during the Apollo 11 extravehicular activity (EVA). Astronaut Neil A. Armstrong, commander, took this photograph with a 70mm lunar surface camera. While astronauts Armstrong and Aldrin descended in the Lunar Module (LM) “Eagle” to explore the Sea of Tranquility region of the Moon, astronaut Michael Collins, command module pilot, remained with the Command and Service Modules (CSM) “Columbia” in lunar orbit.
Sending astronauts to the moon seemed like an amazing thing in 1969. They landed 45 years ago, July 20, 1969. Like millions of others, I was glued to the TV set.
Sarah
My Photos on the Body Balance Website
Sarah asked me to do some photos for her fitness website which was in the planning stages at the time. We had a great time working together. I learned today that her site is now online. It still makes my day to see one of my clients use my photos on their site! This is a screen capture of my photos on two pages of her site.
A Moment of Discovery
When you are photographing very active children around 2 1/2 years of age, it is often best to just follow them around and let them do their thing, rather than try to “pose” them. I followed my grandson around my backyard for almost an hour, taking pictures and hoping to get just the right image. To get the best point of view I needed to be on my knees. Spending that much time on your knees is hard on the knees, but what else can you do? When you photograph children you need to be down on their level.
My thanks to the people who put this message together.
Nature Photography Workshop in Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park.
I am very excited to announce my first nature photography workshop in Colorado. I have been doing classes and workshops in Michigan since 1995 and more recently in Ohio and Alberta Canada, but this is a first for me in Colorado.
U.S. Flag, Parade
If you are going to photograph a parade, sometimes the best point of view is from the middle of the street and close to the ground. It also helps if you spent several years doing photography for a newspaper. Equipment is important too.
Thomas Jefferson by Rembrandt Peale, 1800
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.â€
From the Declaration of Independence, signed July 4, 1776. Written by Thomas Jefferson (1762-1826). 3rd US President (1801-09).
More images (including Thomas Jefferson’s original draft and George Washington’s personal copy) and the complete text follows the break.
U.S. Flags, Westerville, Ohio
The Strip, Las Vegas with Fireworks
You can point your camera at the sky in auto exposure and autofocus modes and fire away whenever you see a burst of fireworks, but for the best quality photos, it helps to know a few tricks of the trade. It’s easy when you know what to do.
Model in Ivy
When a beautiful NYC model says “I am in Ohio for the week if you are available to shoot”, the correct response is  “I would love to do another shoot!”
17 Year Cicada Closeup
It was my good fortune to be in Iowa for the peak of the 17 Year Cicada “emergence”. It was amazing. It was also unbelievably noisy. If you stood under a cicada filled tree (they prefer some trees to others), you could barely hear well enough to have a conversation with a friend standing two feet away.
Astrophotography Books by Allan Hall
Publishers and authors have been sending me complementary copies of their books. This is a new thing for me. They are hoping I will give them a favorable review on one of my websites, and they really are hoping some of their books end up on one of my “Best of the Best” lists (see the links below).
Photo Field Trip
Update, June 20, 2014: Complete information on the October 18 workshop.
This photo was taken during a field trip at my recent workshop at OSU Mansfield. Photographers show up with everyting from point and shoot cameras to professional level equipment.
D-Day, June 6, 1944. Photo by Robert Capa.
This is Robert Capa’s iconic photo of D-Day, June 6, 1944. He was dropped in chest deep about 100 yards from the beach. With bullets flying all around, Capa struggled to get to shore with three cameras, took photos along the way, and helped drag a wounder soldier out of the water.
“Tank Man” by photojournalist Stuart Franklin.
25 years ago, pro-democracy demonstrators, mostly students, spent several weeks in Tiananmen Square in central Beijing China.