What do you see when you look at this picture?
It's hard to describe and certainly hard to capture on a camera.
What you'll see is that you're right on top of the water and that the view captures the detail right up to the bottom of the frame.
What's going on is that I'm using a wide angle lens. I've got a Nikon 10-24mm lens which is the widest lens you can get on a non-full frame camera.
So what's the deal?
Well most people want wider lenses to "get more in," or to zoom out more, you know, get more scenery, get a larger group, that kind of thing. And to be honest, it works to that end.
But that is not what they are for. A wide angle lens is about distorting near-far relationships and pulling the viewer right into the image.
In this picture, I was sitting on a rock, holding the camera a few inches above the water.
You can't tell it's that close in the photo but because it was when I took the picture it let's you feel like you're on the water and let's you see that detail.
If you don't quite get it, try taking a similar photo and see how it turns out.
If you don't want to do that, or just don't care, well, just enjoy!
Monday, July 11, 2011
Wide Angles
Storytelling DOP
I just came back from Banff and I've got a few decent photos I'd like to share.
But first I'll say that I absolutely love my friends. We drove from around the country to meet up in Banff before all going on our separate ways again. (Except for the one that lives there).
You can't beat the feeling that comes from knowing there are certain people who you will share your life with.
Anyway, back to photography.
It's funny because I take hundreds and then in the end only like a few, but I guess that's how it goes.
So I met up with a few friends and we trekked around Banff National Park. At one point we went to Moraine Lake and did a secondary trek to Consolation Lake.
At one point, we were at this picture's vantage point and I snapped this photo.
What I wanted to do was use the "story telling aperture," that is f/22.
What it does is give an huge depth of field, where almost everything is in focus. Click on the picture and look at what I mean.
Plus, this was taken with a wide angle, down near the rocks, so you can really see the detail.
As well, the wide angle has nice contrast, so the image just looks good.
I really only started doing this when I went to Banff because I've never really had any opportunity to put everything in focus, because often, isolating the subject works better.
But sometimes, it just works. My thought is that if I printed this huge, one could stare at the detail.
Anyway, I'll post a few more over the next few days.
Cheers!
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Clouds, river, rain, timing
I'll start off by saying I'm going to take interesting pictures every day, damnit! That way I can practice and you (read: nobody) can enjoy.
On to today's picture, we'll talk about timing.
I was driving home after picking up a rental car and noticed the sky was awesome.
From my limited understanding of meteorology, it appeared that there was a front pushing eastward.
Right behind the front was turbulent clouds getting pulled behind it.
It made for some awesome effects, though it was somewhat bland colour-wise.
But this post is about timing. In order to get this shot I had to speed home because the wind was blowing the clouds quite fast.
Then I had to steal a camera from Danielle's office, the take an elevator up 15 floors, run up a flight of stairs before finally grabbing something useful.
While it seems all right, this picture is more about the failure of timing. If I had been faster, I would have got the front approaching the city with the iconic bridge in the foreground.
Instead I got this. Nice? Maybe. But you produce what you plan.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Around the world
If you look through, you'll first of all notice his sweet ass back pack, then you'll notice how much crap he's bringing.
Nothing wrong with it really, here's what Danielle and I brought with us.
That's really just the clothes, we brought a lot of little things like plug adapters, toothbrushes, headlights etc.Here's the thing though. Now that I've traveled, I would bring 1/3 of this stuff AT MOST.
You know why? The entire world sells everything you need. Unless you're in the most isolated spot in the world, you're always going to find toothpaste, deodorant, flip flops, t-shirts, batteries, plug adapters, umbrellas, cell phones, etc, etc.
Honestly, next time, I'm going to bring one pair of comfortable travelly pants, a t shirt for the ride, a hoodie incase it gets cold, shoes, a pair of socks, a camera and MAYBE a computer and that's it, I'm done.
Not that I plan on doing this anytime soon. My first goal is to get rich so that I can care even less when I travel.
We'll see how that goes...
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Light play
It sounds stupid, but photography is all about light.
We see things all day and everyday and don't notice the subtle changes in light. Now, when you think back you can recall that say, at sunrise the light is orange, but when you're driving to work you probably don't really care.
Well with photography you have to learn to see more than what your brain is telling you. You need to have an unconscious idea of what pure white looks like and compare it to what the sun is doing.
It's fun once you get the hang of it. You start to notice shadows, contrast and different interplays of colours.
Unfortunately for me, this almost always happens when I don't have a camera, or, since the sun is moving, it only lasts for a few precious minutes.
Like this photo. It's not the best, I know but here's why it's decent any way.
I had to cover a story on our river here, which is 2.5 meters higher than normal.
As I was standing there getting some river shots, I noticed there was a small whole in the otherwise complete overcast sky.
We're talking like a few arc minutes at best here. I also noticed that it was going to pass right under the sun.
Looking around, I thought, "what will just pop with the bright sun against the dark sky?"
So I snapped a few of these lovely flowers.
Like I said, until you know to look for light, you'll never really see it. I bet that if you had just looked at this photo you might have thought it looks nice.
But now that you know the story, I bet you can actually imagine in your head exactly how the sun hit the flowers and how just those few minutes of interesting light that you might have otherwise ignored or not even "seen" can make for a captivating photo.
(In retrospect, I should have got a better angle, but no can do I suppose.)
Anyway, until next time!
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Teamwork
First off, here's the plan. As often as I can, I'm going to post photos of my work and direct people here so they can check out the variety of shooting I do.
But that's just so you know where I'm coming from.
The REAL ultimate goal is just to share my love of photography.
Photojournalism has a special place in my heart and I'll stick with it no matter what happens.
It's different from other types of photography because it's all about taking what's available and turning that into a compelling image.
Portraits, you can reshoot. Landscapes, you can wait all day. But with photojournalism, you're often in a rush, on a deadline or shooting something that has only a few minutes of tension.
Take this photo for example. It was a run of the mill house fire. I missed the flames was desperate to shoot something.
The FD is good with us in that if we don't get in the way, they'll let us do our thing.
In this case, that was all good, but the available light was almost zero and I was relatively far away.
I was pacing back and forth hoping for a moment of optical clarity and compositional serendipity when I noticed the best angle of the front of the house was actually right through the fire truck, which the FD had left open.
Not only that but there was a flood light right beside the door. I waited for a few seconds and a guy comes out for an air refill. I snapped 3 frames and chose this one. About 2 seconds later, they moved and closed the door.
It was the shot I needed and I went back to the office.
Friday, June 10, 2011
La Ronge Pelicans
Let me tell you about this photo.
I had to go up to La Ronge to cover a few things.
For those who don't know, La Ronge is a solid two hours north of PA, which is already north as hell as far as civilization in Canada goes.
Anyway, I had about five hours to kill and I heard people talking about a river that had sucker fish spawning, which is a sure sign of spring. i ventured over there and watched people catching the fish to make sucker head soup.
There were a few pelicans that were up the river and I decided to follow them.
Granted, they didn't appreciate it and flew away so I went into stealth mode.
I essentially hunted them for about two hours, but instead of a gun I had my ol' d200.
Moving with the wing I crept up to them, and they flew away twice, but I persisted. This is one of the results. I actually have a few of them hanging around but I though them in flight with the sun at their backs made for the best image.
Reboot!
Also I want to start putting up more photos because I'm branching off into other photo vetures such as weddings and advertising. At least, that's the hope any way.
Luckily, I take photos almost everyday and I'm always trying to live the "Awesome Life" so I'll post what makes sense.
Anyway, here's a recent pic I'm proud of.
(1/125, f 6.3, ISO 800, Auto WB, darkened, sharpened.)
This happened shortly after the ducks were all released. A bunch of the wee ones got on their bellies. I has to run around the pond, which probably has a 200 meter diameter before getting thin angle. At some points I was seriously contemplating getting in the pond but it didn't come to it.
Any way there ya go! I'll try updating around the site in the next few days.
Cheers!