Cemetery Ridge: Four hours of soup tasting

          Photography is frequently about the waiting. Waiting for the light to be right, waiting your subject to show up or waiting for your studio appointment time.

          What a photographer does before all those things are right is one of the keys to

Image 1. Early in the session. You can
see what the clouds add to the image.

producing good images. This is especially true of outdoor shoots. You don’t have the time to arrive just as the light gets good. By the time you set your equipment (tripod, monopod, lights, reflectors, defuses and, oh yeah, the cameras) in position and adjust all the settings, your light will have changed or disappeared.

          Like a math class, homework is vital to photography.

          I have a modest example here. I shot these images along Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg in June of this year. This statue is along the line the Union defended on the final day of the battle of Gettysburg, July 3, 1863. We know it today as Pickett’s Charge.

          I knew from experience that the weather conditions that afternoon appeared to be heading toward something I’d wanted to capture for years. As we don’t live within easy driving distance of Gettysburg, the chance was a tremendous opportunity.

Image 2. From the front and with
the 'soup' at its most light sensitive.

          Your loyal, not to mention intrepid, photographer was on site for four hours. The camera bag included the trusty Nikon D90, four lenses, a tripod and a monopod. The external flash was in the bag but went unused.

          It was important to know where the sun would set in relation to the statue and what the resulting angle would be. What would the statue look like from that viewpoint (with backlighting) and what lens would be best?

          Lens selection would dictate the answer to some of the considerations listed above and would also offer different opportunities for the camera settings. What ISO would work best in the low light, what shutter speed and aperture contribute best to the image?

           What stage of the sun’s setting would work best in the image?

          Look at the images. I admit they do not illustrate one important part of the process, covering the subject from every possible angle. There isn’t enough space here to exhibit that part of the procedure here, but the session included images from everywhere around the statue.

Image 3. See how the colors have started changing? Now the
statue seems to be raging against the evening sky. You must
remember the context of the location.

          Look at the second image. This one was captured later than the first, but because the soup is different (I call the combination of the ISO, shutter speed, aperture and lens expansion the soup) the lighting seems brighter.

          The third image is significantly later in the session and the clouds now made a 

Image 4. Do you see how the light frames the leading edges of the
figure? A few steps to camera's left would have been better for
this effect.

more important impact on the image. The statue had become solidly backlit and the colors of the sky were changing by this point in the evening. Look how clear the lines of the figure were against the sky. By this time I had abandoned the monopod I used in the earlier hours.

Every image was now captured from the top of the tripod. Tripods are inexpensive nowadays and they telescope so easily that they are very portable. Mine has a nice little carrying handle.

          Look at the fourth picture now. See how the sun reflects off the forward portions of the statue? The sky was a little too consistent for this to be a really nice shot, but the lighting made this a fun image. The reflection frames the statue and, given the setting, it talks to us a little about facing difficulty.

          In the fifth shot, the sun had finally inserted itself into the frame. I wanted something really special and knew I had to include Ol’ Sol somehow, but I was uncertain when the particular cloud pattern we had would make for the desired moment. All I knew for certain was that I was still waiting for the perfect moment.

Image 5. The time for the session is starting to expire. The clouds
are not quite what I need for what I want (I'd rather blame the
conditions than blame myself!) but I have largely decided what lens and
soup settings I want for the big finish.

          Even in the final few minutes I was still experimenting with the soup and swapping lenses back and forth. I had still not settled on the right location for the camera. I had one spot for the short lens and one for the long one. But I still needed right spot for the intermediate lens.



Image 6. The sun has set, the light is
leaving but I have just enough time for
this last image.


 

          In the final frame, the sun has gone down behind the mountain. But the darkening sky remains red and bright enough to backlight the statue.

          In all, about 600 frames were produced, but many were deleted as the hours progressed. The joys of digital photography include the ability to check and recheck your soup and I did a lot of that. It isn’t much different from a cook tasting soup in the kitchen and then adding a dash of something.

          I hope this helps some beginning photog out there think before clicking. As we said back when we were kids, the more you think, the less you stink.

          Thanks for reading.

 

 

 

Image 7. The best of the lot. It is Sunset for the Confederacy.