DON'T JUST STAND THERE

Now that I've got your attention, tell me if you agree with this statement. Generally speaking, most of us walk around with camera in tow waiting for that invitation to bring our camera to our face. And, that is exactly what we do--we stand there and bring our camera to our face, at eye level. What would happen if we changed the definition of "eye level.?"

Here is my challenge for you. Spend an hour, half a day, or all weekend shooting from any level other than eye level, if it's physically possible for you to do so. Raise your arms as high as they will reach and shoot down at something. Put your camera on the floor or inches from the ground and shoot straight up. You get the picture? 

If you have a tilting back screen, that will make this a bit easier. If you don't, you will need to take a shot, re-position the camera and take another shot. 

So, why do this? I like to do this to get different and unique perspectives; to make the common uncommon and the mundane insane. 

Let's move on to some examples. I'll start with this image. Before I explain, what do you think you are looking at here? 

The state of Utah capitol is one of the most beautiful capitols I have seen, and I've seen several. When you walk in, the size, design, and artistry of the interior grabs your attention immediately. If you stand in the center of the building and look straight up, you see its awesome dome decorated with murals. There is a huge chandelier hanging from dead center--those are lights from the chandelier you see; all those white round objects shaped in a circle. 

The tip of the dome is 165 feet from the floor. The chandelier hangs from a 95-foot chain!

So, how did I get this shot? I placed my tripod in dead center, opened its legs as far out as they go, lowered the center column as low as I could, placed my camera on the tripod facing straight up. Before I did that though, I set my camera for auto focus (with a 17 mm lens), and placed the focusing point in dead center. I set my f/stop to f/22. I always like to use more f/stops than I need. The small f/stop gave me a shutter speed of 1/4.

Now, let's go with just the opposite--shooting down. I was at Denver, Colorado's annual Chalk Art Festival. As I photographed several artists on their knees painting their pieces on the street asphalt, it occurred to me to take my camera strap from around my neck, extend my arms as far as I could, and shoot straight down. But, first I had to make some calculated estimates. My settings were: 640 ISO (to get a fast shutter speed); focal length of 17 mm; f/stop of f/11. Using the Aperture Priority setting, the camera gave me a shutter speed of 1/250. I set my exposure compensation at -1 stop. But, please, don't memorize these settings. They are based on the time of day, the weather that day (clear skies), the camera and lens I used, etc. Don't memorize settings or formulas. Memorize concepts! By concepts I mean facts like: If you are going to hand hold a shot, you are going to need fast enough shutter speeds to get a sharp (not fuzzy) photo; the higher the ISO, the faster shutter speed you'll get (when shooting Aperture Priority); etc If you memorize concepts, you will know what to do with your f/stops, shutter speeds, exposure, ISO, White Balance, etc--regardless of the situation.  

During one of my "shootings," I came across this great old antique hot rod. Here is the original photo of the car.

I set my lens on 17 mm, my auto focusing point on about 1/3 from the bottom of the viewfinder, ISO at 500, f;stop at f/8, and set my exposure compensation dial to +1.3--it was dark underneath and I wanted to get as much detail as possible. Those settings, on Aperture Priority, gave me a shutter speed of 1/30. My camera was on a tripod. So, again, taking the time to do this gives us those unique-looking photos; photos we're not used to seeing because......well, because we just stand there! 

As I walked along Pearl Street Mall (an outdoor mall) in Boulder, Colorado, I came across this bar/cafe that caught my attention. It was the light bulbs that grabbed my attention. As I always do, I asked if I could photograph the light bulbs--they weren't your everyday light bulbs. I wasn't interested in the bulbs in the bar--I was interested in the bulbs. I wanted to isolate them from their surroundings. So, I shot up at them. 

The bulbs were high on the tall ceiling, so I set my lens to 170mm to get a really tight shot of them, and f/25 to make sure I got everything sharp.

The more focal length, the more f/stop you need to get things sharp. That is a result of the change in aperture size as we go higher in focal length. For example, a 300mm lens at f/8 will have less depth-of-field than a 17mm at f/8 because its aperture size, even at the same f/stop, is larger. Test that out someday.

Now this is different than the images above. One Halloween season I bought a hand-sized hard plastic skull. I thought it would be fun to do an in-camera multiple exposure. I placed the skull on a low surface and shot down at it, then moved it once and rephotographed it, then did it two more times to create 4 skulls in a circle, as if they were talking to each other. I made all four shots shooting straight down. I converted the final image to a B&W photo.

In case you're wondering how I got them so perfectly aligned, this is what I did. I took some measurements, then placed Scotch tape where each of the four had to be. So, when I placed the skull for each of the 4 shots, I simply placed it where I had placed the small pieces of Scotch tape. 

                                                        "Heady Debate"

I was in the middle of a 1-on-1 lesson with a student in Idaho Springs, Colorado. One of the landmarks in the historic mining town is the still-standing ARGO gold mine and mill. Several feet in front of the main facility are several ore cars displayed in the yard, at eye level. I showed my student how we could get much lower and shoot up at the old ore cars, while placing the building and sign as a backdrop in order to create context. These shots were more interesting, more intriguing than the straight-on shots. 

i will finish with this artistic assemblage of beautiful and naturally colored rocks I found near a dry creek bed along Owl Creek Pass in Colorado. I use the word assemblage intentionally, as I gathered several differently-shaped and differently-colored rocks together to create this image. After I got the composition that looked good to me, I shot straight down at them. 

So what are you waiting for? Don't just stand there. Go out and look at life differently. Think creatively; shoot creatively. 

As I say in my book, my right brain shakes hands with my left brain and says, "I have an idea, and this is what I need from you."

Have fun. Unfurl your soul. Stay safe! 

Eli   

www.elivega.net

  

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 ORDER OUT OF CHAOS

I thought I'd do something different this month. I have chosen beautiful 210-acre Garvan Woodland Gardens (GWG) in Hot Springs, Arkansas as the backdrop for my tips this month. In any gardens like these, it is easy to become overwhelmed. There is so much to see, so many plants, flowers, landscaping, etc. Where do we start? What do we photograph? Where do we aim our camera?

Have you ever felt that way during your travels or weekend getaways? Now this might sound strange, but when it comes to photography, the eyes see too much. We need to reign our eyes in through a technique I call "scanning." I spend a lot of paragraphs on this in my book Right Brain Photography. Today I will just give you an abbreviated version of this approach.

If we try too hard, it will be too hard. By that, I mean there is an easier way. What I do when I encounter those OMG scenarios is to scan the area within my view. At this point, I don't even worry about the entire park or gardens--that's way too much to swallow. I follow my intuition and let it guide me. I don't doubt it; I just follow it. If I sense there might be something over there I simply walk over there and check things out. So, what am I looking for once I get "over there?" I don't photograph subjects. I look for color, shapes, lines, design, and even mood. Sometimes I get certain feelings from a place or a subject I see. The actual scenario or subject(s) become secondary. I obviously see it, but I look much deeper than what the eyes see.

I have been to GWG four times, so far. The following are extracts from those visits.

The first thing I do when I visit a place like this for the first time is to get a map, ask the staff to show me the highlights, and I also ask them if there are any features, displays, or current blooms that are out this time of year. 

One of the highlights in the gardens is this waterfall area. I don't do usually do HDR in nice open areas like this, but this particular day, at this sight, I was getting an extremely wide dynamic range of lighting, more than my camera could handle. My rule of thumb with HDR-created images (combining 2-3 images to create a single image) is to not make them look "HDRed." I don't like that "illustration" or "architectural rendering" look. That's why I never combine more than three images.  

I saw this bridge from several yards away, but didn't like the surroundings I saw from that distance. I kept walking toward it, carefulling seeing how the surrounding environment changed as I walked. I was looking at how the areas to the left, right, and behind the bridge were looking as I got closer. I liked the design of the bridge, but was looking for the best surroundings that complemented the bridge. All of a sudden, there it was! As I got close to the bridge I knew that was my shot. It was like a life metaphor. I like scenarios that give me what I call that "scene from a novel," used by authors to describe a feeling, a goal, a promise. 

A few years ago, the 'Gardens commissioned an architect to design a million-dollar "tree house" would fit in with the theme of the garden. As you can see from the image below, it works. 

All photos I had seen were of the treehouse itself, hovering above the gardens. However, when I saw it, I noticed that the designers had included an engraved space under the treehouse that replicated theme of "tree" house. The walkway I was standing on was too close to the scene. I had to use a 10 mm wide angle lens to capture it all.

This is what I call extracting. I extract something I'm "working on" and eliminate the rest, that is, I ignore everything else in order to better focus on the results I want.  

   

One of the highlights of these gardens is Bridge of the Full Moon. The trick is to find the best perspective. I wanted more than just a "smart phone" picture of it. After scanning the scene, I saw this. It didn't hurt that the scene was sprinkled with spring colors. The "smart phone" picture would have been of, well, just the bridge. However, I wanted to incorporate the essence of the environment in which the bridge was built--the creek, trees, plants, hillsides.   

A Japanese garden is a must for any decent gardens. There is one in Portland, Oregon, in Denver, Colorado, and at Garvan Woodland Gardens. For this scenario, my goal was to capture the garden, the koi and its surroundings. Again, the spring colors added the exclamation point. 

All the principles I use to create my compositions were present that day. However, I had to be patient for some of those principles to come together. I wanted fish to fill in that empty lower right-hand corner (containment). It took several minutes of waiting patiently for the most colorful koi to swim in that specific corner. The other composition principles which I incorporated were: the small green tree on the lower left and the small white trees on the left (containment), the curving stone path (leading line), the big white tree (balances out other areas in the scene. The center of interest was the entire scene.  

You can't visit GWG without at least walking into Anthony Chapel. It is one of three glass chapels in the state. There are two others in the U.S. outside of Arkansas. It is a big chapel, so be sure to take a wide angle lens--at least 18 mm. You will also need a tripod, or a camera that will give you great images at high ISOs. If shooting without a tripod, a lens with vibration reduction will come in handy. 

Not far from the chapel is a beautiful five-story bell tower. In order to amplify it's surreal qualities, I put my camera on the ground and shot straight up at it, then converted the image to B&W. I used a 10mm-24mm lens, set at 10mm.

There is even a little cave you can walk into. Shooting from the inside looking out, you definitely will need some degree of HDR. I used three images to get this one. I wanted to keep the inside darker than the outside to make it look the way it looks and feels when you're in there. 

Photo enthusiasts who have taken my classes or workshops know that I can't be on a photo shoot without creating my right brain photography  During one of my visits to GWG, I saw a section that had an endless sea of colorful tulips. Absolutely beautiful. I created several images that day, but this one gave me the best feel of what if felt like when surrounded by and immersed in color and vibrance. This is an in-camera double exposure.

   

I hope I have given you some ideas, techniques, and approaches to take with you next time you visit a botanical garden, arboretum, or Chinese garden. What I shared with you is a portion of my I.S.E.E. SOMETHING paradigm--use your Intuition, scan, extract, and eliminate everything around you to help you focus. 

Don't get overwhelmed, stay focused, and, most importantly, have fun!

Contact me if you would like a 1-on-1 ZOOM lesson.  

vegaphotoart@gmail.com