August, 2009 | Photocrati

Taking wedding pictures that stand out from the pack

I think it goes without saying that a professional photographer produces unique and creative images at a wedding that the ordinary guest can’t hope to duplicate. I’m saying it anyway because more and more I see people doing their best to do my job.

At a typical wedding there are 2,347 cameras. Everyone has a camera and everyone is taking snapshots. Then, all the snapshots go on Facebook for the world to see … right next to the shots that I have uploaded for my client. Also, the client sometimes uploads a ton of pictures from the CD I provide and they all mingle together in the giant Facebook stew of photography.

It’s easy to tell which pictures are mine. There aren’t many guests at a wedding using off-camera strobes for the formals or bouncing flash. However, there may be plenty of guests with decent, high-end camera’s taking snapshots. Many times these snapshots are good. So, what can I do to distinguish myself from these people? (more…)

The Tuesday Composition: Visual Echoes

Backlit Foliage, North Falls — Backlit Foliage. North Falls

If you like this article, you can now get the book! Joe has expanded the “Tuesday Composition” series into an inspiring new ebook on composition, especially for nature photography. Check it out: The Tuesday Composition.

As we discussed last week, centered compositions often describe or emphasize a relationship between one half of an image and another. “What’s similar between these two?” “What’s different?” These compositions succeed because the image itself provides the answer to this questions. Reflections are a simple example of this, answering “it’s all the same”, making the relationship between the reflection and the reflected object a subject of the photograph.

But simple reflections and symmetries aren’t the only place (by far) where images take on life because of visual relationships we create between parts of an image. I refer to these visual relationships “echoes.” These visual echoes, like reflections, invite us to compare and contrast. But they can take on others forms as well, based on correspondences between line, form, texture and/or color. (more…)

Handholding: Making Sense of the 1/f rule

Polar Bear Walking. Without familiarity with the 1/f rule and how to use it, this 300mm shot would have been a blur. — Polar Bear Walking. Without familiarity with the 1/f rule and how to use it, this dusky 300mm shot would have been a blur.

I got some questions over the weekend about the details of the 1/f rule and I thought I’d share some of my answers with you. It is a simple formula which allows photographers to roughly estimate how fast a shutter speed they’ll need to prevent camera motion from blurring an image.

The “1/f rule” simply says that the longest shutter speed you can handhold a 35mm camera, with careful technique but without a tripod or other support, without getting blur from camera motion is about one second divided by the focal length of the lens (in millimeters). For a 100mm lens, the rule suggests that you’d have a shot at getting a sharp handheld shot at 1/100 of a second (or a 1/1000), but not a 1/10, or 1/50. This is fairly intuitive. Telephoto lenses magnify more, magnify motion more, than wide-angle lenses, and so you need a proportionally faster shutter speed to get a sharp image with the longer lens.

The rule is not particularly precise, though, and it is helpful to keep a few caveats in mind. (more…)

The Cost of Sleep

Sunrise, Goblin Valley. When sunrises are a must, sleep comes at a premium price. — Sunrise, Goblin Valley. When sunrise is a must, sleep comes at a premium price.

Normal people (by which I mean non-photographers) often suffer from a strange delusion-the idea that it makes sense to spend thousands of dollars (and both weeks of annual vacation) travelling across the world to see a beautiful place, but no sense at all to either get up for sunrise or stay outside for sunset, and thus having to eat dinner earlier or later than their usual hour. A little thinking ahead might give many of these folks a better vacation experience.

Of course, we photographers need to think ahead too.

For many of us, sunset and sunrise are our prime working hours, it’s important to be out and about for both. In many locations, this can be a challenge. My first trip to Glacier National Park in Montana was in mid-summer some years back. I realized then that if I needed to be up at 4:15 to make a 5 a.m. sunrise, and that I wouldn’t be back from a 9 p.m. sunset until almost 10, that it was absolutely impossible to get more than about six hours sleep between the two and still make both calls, in practice, I was getting closer to four and a half. (more…)

Working for the Man, Part 2

Back in March I posted an article entitled, Working for the Man about what life is like as a corporate shooter. Well I thought it was time for an update. We just survived a corporate-wide rumor that the Hatchet Man cometh, but as with most corporate chatter it was nothing but a rumor. So I live to shoot another day, (more…)

The Tuesday Composition: Sometimes Centering Does Work

If you like this article, you can now get the book! Joe has expanded the “Tuesday Composition” series into an inspiring new ebook on composition, especially for nature photography. Check it out: The Tuesday Composition.

As I’ve said before (and will keep saying), these photographic “rules” we talk about are more like dozens of tools in a large toolbox, and the vast majority of your images will only use a small subset of those tools. In fact, often there are very good reasons to do precisely the opposite of whatever one of these guidelines might seem to suggest, sometimes the rules themselves are contradictory. Today’s column is a case in point. Last week I explored a number of reasons you’d usually be better off not centering things vertically or horizontally in your images. This week, I’m going to mention some exceptions, but those exceptions are no more hard-and-fast as the original “rule” was. As such, I hope that you’ll not only get some ideas about why images might work well centered, but also that you’ll get a little better idea of what I mean by the “toolbox” metaphor. (more…)

Pro Bono Work

Being a photographer is a great way to make a living. Sure it’s challenging, but anything worth doing is. Sure it takes talent and hard work, but anything worth doing does. But c’mon, I’m not saving the world here. (more…)

Photographing Cacti and Desert Succulents

Saguaro Silhouette. Nce idea, but this particular shot failed because of wind movement. — Saguaro Silhouette. Nice idea, but this particular shot wasn't a "keeper" because of wind movement. Pity!

(In my three-part introduction to photographing Death Valley (part 2, part 3), I noted that I wanted to spend some time talking about techniques for photographing cactus, my apologies for the delay in getting that finished for you. I hope it was worth the wait!)

Cacti astonish me. The desert air can be dessicating, a sponge pulling every drop of water out of everything around it, and yet many of these plants have evolved to survive and even thrive in these harsh environments.

For the photographer, cacti offer interesting forms, patterns and texture from their spines, and color from the occasional desert bloom. (more…)

Hey photography’s legal again, uh, not so much

A while ago I wrote about the NYPD being re-informed of our rights to take pictures of, well, whatever we want. It seems Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano didn't get…