FIREWORKS

 The 4th of July is under two months away, but it will be here before we know it. In preparation for it, and to give everyone a chance to "practice," I thought I would share my long-trusted techniques with you. They have never let me down. And, yes, for some of the results, i.e., images, I may need to do some fine-tuning, like cropping and darkening the areas around the fireworks. With that, let's get started.

First, find out where the fireworks will be when you get there. In most cases, In most cases, the local newspaper or local radio stations will inform you as to where they they will be launched. Locate that area with your camera. Give yourself enough space (focal length) to cover part of the reflections (if any) and the highest point of the fireworks displays. This is an estimate at this point. You can always crop later if necessary.

Equipment needed: a tripod, zoom lens--example: between 18mm-200mm, depending on how close or far you are to the displays. A cable release or remote trigger. Set your camera's shutter to BULB. Set f/stop to roughly f/8--you might need to change to f/9 or f/10 during the evening, if the bursts come out too bright. You can shoot RAW, but I've shot JPEG Fine with excellent results. Set lens to manual focus and estimate your focus distance. Auto-focus can easily be tricked, with so much movement in the evening sky. You will also need a square or rectangular piece of opaque material--enough to cover the lens. Let's call this the "cover." Example: camera manual, small piece of poster board, etc. Make sure it's not thin and flimsy. In essence, that will be your shutter speed.

STEPS: Set up the camera's estimated position. Most shots work better vertically for me. Keep the lens cap on until it's time for the fireworks. When the first bursts start, look through your lens, notice where they go and how high they're going. Adjust the camera and focal length accordingly. Focus on near-infinity--you can tell if you got it right by displaying the first burst.

Now, the fun begins. With the cover on and your finger on the cable release/remote, when the next burst explodes, click the shutter while quickly removing the cover out of the way, then put it back within 1-3 seconds (experiment with the time during the evening). 

Throughout the night, experiment with two-three bursts: Click the shutter and remove the cover, then place it back, but leave the shutter open with your finger on the cable release or remote trigger. Take the cover off again when you see the next burst, then cover it up again. You just combined two bursts in your image! Repeat the process with three bursts, or with just single bursts. You'll be amazed. Have a fun 4th of July!

Below are several examples from past experiences. If you're in the northern Front Range in Colorado, Estes Park always has a great "Fourth" display! I have seen great displays in Branson, Missouri, Grand Lake, Colorado, and in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

So, read your local paper or listen to your local radio station and find out where the fireworks in your area will be launching from. Follow my steps above and have fun with it! 

If you live in the Hot Springs, Arkansas area, contact me for a field lesson before July 4th. 

www.elivega.net     vegaphotoart@gmail.com

 PHOTOGRAPHING EVENTS

Events are both challenging and fun to photograph. They're challenging because so many variables interfere with a good shot. They're fun because you just never know what you're going to find.

I improve my percentage of keepers by knowing and preparing for the challenges. Here is a key list of what I anticipate: wall-to-wall people, confined quarters, unexpected action--the need for quick grab shots, and the need for fast shutter speeds. 

Given those challenges, here is a list of preparations: I'll need to be ready to used wide-angle capability to be able to photograph subjects while in crowded spaces; telephoto capabilities to isolate subjects from the crowds if needed; a low-number f/stop setting to blur the backgrounds behind my subjects; and, to make sure I have the continuous shooting mode set on my camera. 

Remaining calm, relaxed, and just enjoying the activities allows me to spot the right subjects to photograph, be ready for split-second moments, and make on-the-spot adjustments, as needed. 

With that introduction, below is but a sliver of examples from my collection. 

In my hometown of Hot Springs, Arkansas, we have an awesome horse racing and gambling resort. Once a year, they have a horse-racing derby (women's hats) competition. It draws a lot of attention--huge crowds! After spending some time photographing the horse races, I started looking for women with big hats/derbies. As I saw a competitor walking across in front of me, I quickly aimed my camera her way. Click! An f/stop of f/6.3. 

In Nederland, Colorado, they have their annual winter Frozen Dead Guy Days. Lots of folks dress outlandishly, well, "deadly." I shot this "dead guy" at f/10 to cover the entire crowd. 

The Chalk Art Festivals in Denver, Colorado are awesome, as well! Such beautiful chalk art is painted on the street, just to disappear in the following days. The image below, at quick glance, looks like the artist is painting a mural. For this one, I stretched my arms out almost over the artist's head and clicked. I made sure I had a high enough ISO in order to get a fast shutter speed--it's impossible to keep my camera steady with outstretched arms. ISO= 640. Shutter speed: 1/250   

Several miles northwest of Denver is Steamboat Springs. It can get miserably cold up there in winter! But, that doesn't stop them from having chariot races, yes, in the snow! 

A word of caution. When there is this much white snow in the scene, it will trick your built-in exposure light meter into underexposing this type of scene. You will need to adjust your exposure compensation dial to, maybe, a +1 stop. Be careful with brightly lit scenes. 

Then there are car show events. I love to photograph those classics. Here is where wide-angle focal lengths come in handy. I stood close to this cool pick-up truck to get away from the crowd of people behind me. But, with my zoom lens set at 19mm, I was able to get my shot with no people in the shot. And, just like the image above, I had a lot of bright white to handle. I set my exposure compensation dial to a + 1-stop to keep the white truck from coming out underexposed.  

For this image of an artist at work, I wanted everything in sharp focus. This was during a 10-day art event that included an artists' studio tour. I wanted enough depth-of-field, but it was not very bright in his studio. So, to have my cake and eat it too, my settings were: f/8, shutter speed of 1/250 (his potter's wheel was rotating rather fast). In order to get that speed in that lighting scenario, I needed an ISO of 12,800--the highest ISO I have ever used.

Photographing horse races is challenging, but fun. I shoot those at f/8 because it's not about blurring the background but trying to get two or three horses all in focus. Shutter speeds are also critical, especially when the horses are moving perpendicular to you at a very fast speed.

I mentioned at the beginning that we have horse racing in my hometown. For this image, my f/stop was f/8; shutter speed at 1/1600. ISO at 1600. It was a cloudy day, so I needed to pump up my ISO to get a fast shutter speed. 

So, find out when your next event is in your town or neighboring towns, and have fun capturing the action. Make sure to determine in advance what f/stops and shutter speeds you will need. If the action is about to begin, like horse races, take some test shots, aiming your camera where you will be shooting, and make any necessary adjustments before the action begins. Have fun! 

    

                              

 SURREALISM

Surrealism is the juxtaposition, or the coming together, of the unexpected. We don't expect to see ice on a tulip or a 1950s rotary telephone hanging from a wooden fence. Surrealism.

I consider Salvador Dalí, from Spain, the Godfather of surrealism, although other artists also delved into the genre. 

I either look for surrealism in life, or I create it by staging elements, objects, in a way that makes you scratch your head. 

Let's look at a few examples from my collection.

I love coffee shops. I walked into one in Steamboat Springs, Colorado called Mocha Molly's. I had my camera because I had just finished doing some shooting. Before I ordered, I went to the restroom, with my camera and tripod. I couldn't believe what I saw! I did not expect to see a jungle mural on all four walls of the men's restroom! Before I "did my business," I quickly locked the door, set up and started shooting! The local artist was Chula Walker. I don't know if she did the same thing with the women's restroom.

           Unfortunately, the coffee shop and the mural are no more. I'm glad I got this shot!    

I saw this old abandoned icehouse. It had been abandoned for so long that nature, including trees, had taken root, inside the vacant building! It was like I was on the inside, looking out.

I love taking day trips along those small two-lane country roads. You just never know what's there waiting for me. More often than not, I will find something worth a photograph. Such was the case when I came across this farmhouse scene. There is so much you can read into this, whether true or not. 

During a long day trip, I stopped at a convenience store to gas up and get some munchies. To my surprise, I saw a cat napping amongst the munchies. I asked the owner what the cat's name was. "Mr. Tibbs," he quickly replied. When surrealism is in my face, I don't hesitate.

Sometimes, I create or stage my surreal images. For this next image, I used one Halloween hard plastic skull and did a multiple exposure. The first step was to place a large black piece of flannel material on my bed. I then activated my multiple-exposure feature in my camera and set it for four (4) exposures, or images. I marked the four spots where I wanted the skull. I placed the skull on the first spot and took my first shot. I then moved and placed the skull on the second marked spot and took my second shot. I continued the same process for the other two shots. In other words, I clicked my shutter button after each of the four skull set-ups.  

When I took my fourth shot, the camera combined all four shots into one single image-- a quadruple multiple exposure!   

Close your eyes and imagine hearing beautiful, soft, angelic classical music being played on a harp. It sounds like what you would hear in a church, at a recital, or on a grand stage. Who do you imagine playing that music? Is it male or female? How is that imaginary person dressed?

Did you imagine this? Surrealism. And, yes, this street performer was playing professional-level classical music.

There are two "painting with light" techniques I use for some of my creative work. One of them requires me to handhold one or two 6-volt flashlights and literally paint my subjects at night or at twilight. The other technique is to simply allow moving lights, late in the evening or at twilight, to do my painting. 

Such was the case for this image. It was getting very dark, but I knew that if I left my shutter open for several seconds, my film, at the time, would capture only the movement of the light, which came from cars and one bus. A 15-second exposure did the trick. The result was a surreal image. A friend saw this image and said it looked there was a dragon inside the tunnel breathing out fire. What do you see?

So, go out and look for surreal opportunities. Find them. Sometimes they don't hit you in the face, like the last image above. You have to imagine them and look beyond what your eyes see. Again, for the image above, my eyes just saw vehicles going in and coming out of the tunnel. My imagination saw what you see above.

Have fun, and don't hesitate to contact me for a field lesson, or simply to ask me a question.  

 

 

 THOUGHTS, FEELINGS, QUESTIONS

Photographs. We look at them. We analyze them for their technical qualities. But can we make the viewer wonder? Can we convey feelings and thoughts? Can we make them elicit questions?
The answer is, "Yes."

I wonder if, in today's photography world, we are so engrossed in getting the photo (technically) correct that we lose sight of the experience we're trying to record or convey. 

A friend once said about my photography, "It's like visual poetry." Another asked, "How do you make your images talk?" I don't know that my photography is visual poetry, but I do prefer to get the right exposure for my images, as opposed to the "correct" exposure. 

So, what's the difference?  The former aims for the creative aesthetics side of photography. The latter aims to get the photo technically correct. The former inspires and elicits feelings, thoughts, and questions. The latter awes the viewer with its sharpness, color vibrance, and no shadows or highlights. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with that. I have several images in my collection that fit that description. There are a lot of markets for that, from a business perspective. 

However, from a fine arts perspective, I like my exposures to be right, not "correct." Some have shadows; some have highlights. Here are several examples of what I mean by preferring the right exposure.

I was waiting for my students to join me for my three-day field workshop around a local lake.            In the meantime, I walked around to see what I could find. It didn't take long before I saw this scene surrounded by light-floating fog. It was so serene and peaceful. I could imagine myself daydreaming on that soft hammock by the lake. 

This scene was just the opposite. You can't help but ask, "What am I looking at?" I found thousands of crosses on the property of a Catholic church. They went on forever. The church was protesting abortion. So surreal. I liked the image better in black and white because it made the crosses really "pop" against the dark grasses and wide-open spaces. 

This next interesting juxtaposition begs questions if you don't know the context. I was photographing  80-million-year-old Monument Rocks in far western Kansas, which were at the bottom of a large sea millions of years ago. Then, totally unexpected, I saw a white and turquoise 1970s VW bus park near the formations, but out of my view. I imagined a Salvador Dalí moment. I walked over to the van and talked to the young driver. He told me he was on his way from Brooklyn to the West Coast. I asked him if he would mind parking his van in front of the formations. He kindly obliged. Click. 

If this scene were photographed in broad daylight, on a bright sunny day, it would be a rather mundane image. However, when photographed in late evening, after the sun had gone down, it takes on a different personality. The darkness creates mystery. The lights on the dump truck cab and bed create interest, as do the lights inside the building. Then there are the grasses lit up by the truck headlights. Correct exposure? No. Right exposure? Yes.     

I wanted to create mood, mystery, and a sense of motion with this scene. It was early morning on this county road. There was a thick fog in the air. By moving slowly forward as I clicked, with a slow shutter speed, I created a sense of motion. The mood was created by the highlights and very dark areas in the image. Again, the right exposure for what I was trying to achieve. 

Where do you usually go when you want to read a book? On your deck in the backyard? At the library? On a shaded bench in your local city park? Maybe at your favorite coffee shop? Not this young lady. She is surrounded by red rock formations! She was reading right behind the stage at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, near Morrison, Colorado. 

   

This woman was not reading. She was waiting for the next train. This nighttime image at a train station begs so many questions. Why is she the only one at the station? Why is she alone?
Where is she coming from, and where is she going? Is she not afraid? And those stilettos?

I was fascinated by the contrast between harsh, hard concrete and steel against the tiny, dainty figure.     

His name is MIchael. I saw him downtown, through a window at Starbucks. The dark shadows around him, his appearance, and his intense focus on what he was reading or doing was an  irresistible story. I introduced myself and asked politely if he'd let me take his picture. He asked what I wanted him to do. Nothing, I said. Just keep doing what you're doing. Click.   

This last image is a perfect example where the "correct" exposure is way off the mark--too many bright areas and too many dark areas. Yeah, that's what I wanted. I wanted the lake fisherman, up to his chest in water, totally silhouetted. Can you imagine this image totally sharp, complete detail through and through, and no shadows?

I encourage you to give yourself an "outside-your-comfort-zone" assignment. Instead of trying to capture the "correct" exposure, translate your thoughts, feelings, or sensations into something we call a photograph. Does your present-moment experience pose questions for you?

Have fun. If you live in the Little Rock/Hot Springs, Arkansas area, contact me for a 1-on-1 or small group field lesson. 

www.elivega.net     vegaphotoart@gmail.com    

 

     

 

 SHUTTER SPEEDS

My students know my approach to shutter speeds, but I wanted to share it with you as well. When you're out shooting, don't ask yourself, "What shutter speed should I use?" 

The questions I start with are, "How do I want this to look?" "What do I want to convey?" "What feeling do I want to translate?" My answer to these questions will determine what shutter speed I choose. This is not science; it's art. So, yeah, I might take a few shots at 1/20, 1/15, and one at 1/6 and decide which one best gives me what I want. Then, if things are moving, and with my camera set for continuous shooting, I get several shots, go home later, and decide which one best fits my original intent, interpretation, or translation.

I rely on shutter speeds when things are moving or might move. For example, if I see a heron just waiting still in knee-deep water, hoping to catch a fish, I make sure I have a high shutter speed set, just in case it starts flying without warning. 

Below are a few examples. I will share what my thoughts were before I started shooting.

I was in downtown Boulder, Colorado. There was a Baile Folklórico dance event taking place.
I watched and photographed the colorful and fast-stepping dancing for a few minutes. But, then my thoughts went from capturing the dancers dancing to capturing the essence of the dance. That led me to change my shutter speed to 1/60th of a second, which is pretty slow for that fast dancing. The results gave me exactly what I envisioned--not the dancing, not people dancing, but simply the essence of the dance: a blur of beautiful color and culture. Below are two shots from that day.

            

Fall colors and a mountain road. I got my autumn shots, but I wanted something more creative; more surreal. I could imagine how the same autumn scene would look if I applied my "swirl" technique. I talk about this technique in my popular book, Right Brain Photography, and in my classes. 

Here is a step-by-step tutorial of how my swirl technique works.
1) Set my lens to manual focus.

2) Focus on the scene, set the appropriate f/stop (I want everything sharp)
3) Make sure I get a slow shutter speed--usually 1/6 to 1/15 will work
4) I place the base of my camera on my palm. 

5) The second I hit my shutter button, I swirl my palm and camera. I don't arch the camera;
    just gently swirl, with my palm as the swivel/swirl point. It takes practice, but the results are cool.

                                                          Shutter speed 1/3 

The water from this damn waterfall was furiously flowing. However, the pounding water wasn't conducive to what I felt, which was a soothing autumn scene. I had also just taken a nice, relaxing hike.

                                                                      1/4

I went to the shores of the Buffalo River in Arkansas. I knew from previous visits that it was hard not to get a good shot there. That day, I saw a couple in canoes coming my way. I picked the best composition for them to be in and just waited for them. I took a couple of shots to get my exposure just right, then waited for them to come into view. They were moving, not fast, but moving. I didn't want to blur them. When in doubt, I choose a high shutter speed, even though it might be more than needed. 

1/250

Horseracing. For these fast-running competitors, I need a very fast shutter speed, if my goal is to "freeze' the horses, especially when they're running perpendicular to me!

1/1600 (hand-held) 

Here is a different type of scenario. As I stood near a powerful waterfall in Rocky Mountain National Park, the ground beneath me vibrated. The sound was extremely loud. However, in the midst of all that, I felt serene, peaceful. After I got my shot of the waterfall, I looked for something else that would interpret; translate my feelings into a photograph. I walked down a slight slope and found my way around two huge boulders, putting me near the bottom of the waterfall. When I saw that scene, I could feel the peacefulness and tranquility. I just had to translate those feelings. I chose 1/6th of a second to achieve that. See below.

I chose this next image for the cover of Right Brain Photography. It was 10-15 minutes after sunset when I started "painting" these natural formations in Garden of The Gods, a city park in Colorado Springs, Colorado. I set my camera on the BULB setting, with my camera on my tripod. The BULB setting allows me to leave the shutter open until I decide to shut it. I depressed the shutter on my cable release, then locked it open. I let my cable release cable dangle as I "painted" the formation with two flashlights. 

5-minute exposure

  

I hope I have given you enough examples for you to understand the importance of why the right questions lead to the right results. I don't simply think mechanically. I think aesthetically as well.

In these examples, I used shutter speeds that ranged from 5 minutes to 1/1600. 

So, please don't start your quest with, "What shutter speed should I use?" Do ask yourself, "How do I want this to look? "What's my message?" "How do I translate these feelings into something we call a photograph."

Have fun, and don't hesitate to contact me with questions.

www.elivega.net     vegaphotoart@gmail.com