We all know that photography is all about the moment. That one perfect moment, or as we so fondly know it, that decisive moment when the the elements of our composition come together in an exciting and unique way. It’s the peak of the action, the perfect expression, the instant when all other concerns in the world drop away from our consciousness because, frankly, there is nothing else at the time that deserves our attention more than The Moment. [click to continue…]
There’s a certain power to showing only part of a scene. It’s one of the things that makes photography such a powerful medium. By only giving your viewers a taste of the entire subject that’s in front of your lens, you cause them to invoke their imagination and think about not only the subject in your frame, but what lies outside of the borders of your pictures.
While traveling in Spain a few years ago, I photographed a flamenco performance at a club in the old barrio of Jerez de la Frontera, which is considered the birthplace of the traditional gypsy art form. I love the intense passion of flamenco music and often listen to it when I’m at home. However, to see and hear it performed by people who have lived it their entire lives is indeed a very powerful experience.
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Before taking a photo, ask yourself "What's the picture about?"
“What’s the picture about?”
This simple question is perhaps the single important ingredient toward composing better images. Without it, you run the risk of making boring, cluttered, distracting pictures where nothing interesting stands out in the frame. Reactions to weak images usually result in very quick, uninterested review by your audience, who will remember very little about your photo as soon as it’s past their eyes. [click to continue…]
Don't place your subjects in the middle of the frame
Sure, most of us already know this. It’s the first rule of photography, but unfortunately, it’s not always heeded, which means that there are some pretty bad pictures out there. In fact, after the oracle at Delphi warned that humans would someday invent cameras that might be used to take pictures like that, the classically minded Greeks devised a complex mathematical formula and established the sacred Rule of Thirds. [click to continue…]
Remaking winter, one shovel full at a time. Note the bare patches in the background.
A client recently contacted me to shoot a Nordic skiing product assignment here in Anchorage. At the time, we were racing towards spring with increasing sunshine and melting snow. Eager to get the project rolling, I submitted my bid and waited to hear back.
And I waited.
I understand that marketing directors are busy people who often have a number of projects at once, but with rising temperatures and days that lengthen by over thirty minutes each week, the window for a ski shoot was quickly closing. Alaska doesn’t have snow year round! I didn’t want the job to be canceled due to warm weather.
Finally the client got back to me. The details were finalized and I soon received the products to photograph. I contacted models, scouted a location and scheduled the shoot.
The morning before the shoot, I watched in horror as the snowplows went down the trail and scraped most of the snow away, leaving large swaths of open pavement in between thin snowy sections that were quickly disappearing.
Fortunately, my intended location still held a slab of snow about an inch thick. But by evening the slab had become a pathetic patch of mush with large spots of pavement showing through.
Suspecting that this might be the case, I had brought a shovel and spent an hour doing reconstructive surgery on the trail. While we took turns shoveling, my two models went back and forth, packing the snow down with their skis. Before long, we had successfully recreated winter with a 150-foot long section of skiable trail that was bordered by dry asphalt at both ends.
By that time, the evening light was warming up, so we started shooting. With careful lens selection and framing, I was able to make the scene look real enough, in the same way that movie crews make a partial set look like the real thing on film.
Sometimes you have to exercise a little creativity and ingenuity in order to get the shot. Conditions may not always be ideal, but the successful photographer will always find a way to make it work.
With lens selection and careful framing, I was able to make the shot work.
I shot this photo of the Newport Bridge in Rhode Island long before I turned pro. I’ve always liked it. It’s elements, working together produce a striking image: rich sunset colors, dynamic lines, compelling composition, all those elements we read about in photography books by the heavyweight nature shooters like John Shaw and Galen Rowell. I checked them out from the library by the dozen when I was just starting out. [click to continue…]
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