Shadows and light

         

          Shadow and light images can be frustrating for the beginning photographer because the object is to seemingly take the common place and turn it to art.

          But it does not need to be the artistic equivalent of climbing Mount Shasta. The same rule a journalism professor at San Diego State once stressed to me about reporting works well for this type of image. The instructor told me, “Keep It Simple, Stupid.”

          The KISS method is a great idea to keep in mind. Beginning photographers will frequently see a terrific opportunity for an image and then get so anxious to be perfect that he or she fails to generate anything decent. To avoid that irritation, start simply.

          With a film camera, you are at the mercy of the ISO rating of your film. Within that constraint, meter your exposure on the lightest area in the image. Set your shutter for a fairly quick speed and set your f-stop for the bright light. After two or three exposures with that setting, start to bracket your image with various shutter/aperture combinations.

          With a digital format, start the same way and bracket your settings. But remember you can cheat by looking at the screen on the back of your camera when making adjustments.

          The image on top is from behind a grandstand at a race track (Thunder Road International Speedbowl) in Vermont. I like the repetition of light and dark and all the cross beams cutting in and out of the light. It’s a wacko shot, sure, but it is very simple and you could duplicate it almost anywhere.

          I was very careful about my metering before taking this shot and, to be honest, I was laughing at myself for taking it in the first place. But I like this image because it is so simple.

          Look at the first two images here. Very simple stuff, light through a window and shutters, landing on a wall. For the purpose of this blog, I have two different exposures here with two different post-photo treatments.

          Which works best for you? Why? What would you do differently? Ask yourself these questions when you see an image from another photographer. Remember those thoughts when you are lining up a shot of your own.



          Here is another pair of images. Talk about cheating! This is a hotel hallway turned upside down. Differing exposure measures here between the two images and I admit to burning in some of the lights to get some detail. Still, a simple shot. The idea for the turnover came when I was playing with Photoshop.

The temptation to crop this differently is
pretty obvious. You might want to crop above
the lights where they end in the distance. But
I wanted to give the observer a chance to
discover the hallway floor above.

          The hallway images are a bit more complicated than the shuttered window, but both serve a purpose. They show that by starting simple, bracketing your exposures for the next set of images and then old-fashioned experimentation, you can develop your own methodology for different types of images.

So remember the KISS method and a nice line from a great old song in the movie, Casablanca:

“A KISS is just a KISS,

a sigh is just a sigh,

the fundamental things apply

as time goes by.”

          This could be the beginning of a beautiful relationship, so thanks for reading.

Action!!



A pan shot. Note the blurry background.

          Action photography is mostly made up of two types of procedures: The pan shot and the frozen action. That’s a little over-simplified but for the purposes of this blog, it will do.



          Beginning photo students are introduced to action photography with those two methods first. Both are tricky when you first try either shot but a photographer needs to have both skills. Each makes an important tool. It’s amazing how often the two skills come in to play.

THE PAN SHOT

Another pan shot

          I’ve had a lot of experience with this technique, most frequently at auto races. The idea is to capture the idea of movement with a clear image of the subject surrounded by a blurred foreground and background. Done properly, this type of image also produces a look of speed.

          You’ll want a location where you know the path the subject will follow. You need to pre-focus and pre-meter on a spot in the subject’s path so when the subject hits the spot, the image with be crisp and properly lit.

          I typically stand with my feet roughly shoulder width apart and one slightly ahead of the other. I want to be moving smoothly when I follow the subject with the camera from an area in front of the pre-selected spot to an area beyond the pre-selected spot. I tuck my left elbow into my ribs, hold the lens in my left hand and use my right hand to trigger the shutter.

          I seldom use a tripod, especially in an action situation. But I make great use of my monopod in panning situations. A monopod is a single pod used to help stabilize the camera, but it offers more maneuverability than a tripod.

          It is very important that the camera moves at the same speed as the subject when you pan. Otherwise your subject will be blurred. The best way to keep the camera and subject in sync is to keep your subject smack in the middle of the view in your eyepiece.

This is a three-quarter pan shot. This is a neat way to
capture intensity.

          The shutter speed needs to be slow, in order to blur the background. I sometimes try to keep the f-stop as open as possible because the flat range of focus can help blur the background and foreground, depending upon the situation.

          There is a slightly different pan shot I use frequently, which I call the three-quarter pan. I use a slightly faster shutter speed in a racing application in order to capture the Goodyear stickers above the wheel wells of the cars when I am photographing a race car in a corner. Everything else is done the same. Otherwise, pan shots work best from a 90-degree angle.

         

FROZEN ACTION

Frozen action. Sunny day and a high shutter speed.

          This procedure is simpler to accomplish than a pan shot. Basically, you crank up the shutter speed as fast as the light conditions will allow and start shooting.

          There are times when your shutter speed can be too fast in a frozen action situation. I once shot sprint cars on a dirt track and used a super fast shutter speed that caught the tires so clearly that you could read the brand name on the sidewalls. The cars looked as though they’d been parked.

Frozen action with a nice, solid wall to protect me.

          The frozen action procedure works well when the action is coming at the camera or nearly at the camera.

          I blogged last year about shooting various sports. You can scroll down for that piece if sports photography is your particular interest.

          Good luck and thanks for reading.

Frozen action. Notice the background is blurred so the subject, the quarterback, stands out.

               

Manning in, Tebow out...

            Professional football history is full of great quarterbacks shooting for one last blast of glory at the end of their playing days. That’s what Peyton Manning is trying to do in Denver, where he has just signed with the Broncos. Manning is shooting for one last chance to perform with the brilliance he has shown ever since turning pro, leading a team deep into the playoffs with great mental focus and physical precision.

            History is full of quarterbacks, many of them Hall of Famers, who have left a franchise where they found greatness for another in the final season or two of their careers. But history is not so full of passers that have turned the trick successfully.

            Norm Van Brocklin left the Rams in the late 1950s to play for the Philadelphia Eagles and won a championship in his final game as a player in 1960. Joe Montana left the 49ers for the Chiefs and took Kansas City into the playoffs once. And how many times did Brett Farve reinvent his career?

            More common are the passers who reach out for one last chance to be a winner and can’t make it happen. When the legendary John Unitas left the Colts, the Baltimore Colts, to join the San Diego Chargers, things did not work out well. Ranked the best professional quarterback of all time by many, Unitas simply didn’t have enough left in the tank to help the Chargers on the field.

            The Los Angeles Rams tried to trade with the New York Jets for Joe Namath for several seasons before the teams finally worked out a deal, but the Rams got Namath a year or two too late. I remember attending a Rams game and watching Namath throw a touchdown pass. But, great as he had once been, Namath wasn’t the same by then.

            I hope Manning has several successful years in Denver. Manning is a classy, positive guy who reflects well upon the game. Denver is a great football town and you like to see loyal fans like those who love the Broncos rewarded with wins.

            But you have to wonder if the Broncos have landed someone from the Van Brocklin/Montana mold or a Unitas/Namath type. I don’t think we’ll know the answer to that question until the end of the 2012 season.

            It seems obvious that the Broncos will have to trade or waive last year’s hero, Tim Tebow. That’s a shame because the Broncos coaching staff did a remarkable job of creating an offense around Tebow last season and it was great fun watching Tebow-mania. It is hard to imagine another coaching staff being as creative as were the Broncos in their use of Tebow, which means the lefty with the odd throwing motion will likely be a bit player with another team.

            It is easy to guess wrong in March, but it seems from here that the Broncos have traded an ascending player with a fanatical following for a Hall of Famer, a very popular one, whose best playing days are behind him.

            Thanks for reading.

Latin's a dead language...

          This one is on me. The joke, that is. I’ll cook some eggs and dump them on my own face.

          I spent three days in the Auburn University library this week, reading through some Confederate Army medical records. I jumped at the chance when the opportunity presented itself.

          Who wouldn’t?

          The information I gathered was not what I was looking for but it was interesting anyway. On the final day, I noticed something I had seen before but did not understand: Vulnus sclopet.

Earlier in the week I ignored the new piece of information but on the final day, it hit me over the head. It was listed as the complaint for hundreds of soldiers by the hospital I was studying that day. Every member of the military unit I am researching that arrived at the hospital in question appearently complained of vulnus sclopet.

Until I saw the sudden spike in the incidence of vulnus sclopet, diarrhea was the leading cause of Confederate soldiers visiting hospitals. Diarrhea was a frequent cause of death for soldiers on both sides of that war. Neither army was especially accomplished in the area of mass sanitation.

I was very excited to note the high incidence of vulnus sclopet because I couldn’t remember reading anything about this obviously dangerous malady. I figured I had stumbled upon an untapped field of study. Visions of instant recognition within the Civil War study community raced through my mind. I’d be published, give speeches and be one of those oft-quoted experts you see on Civil War television specials.

My blog would gain readership!

Finally, I could stand the excitement no further and I stepped briskly to the desk to ask the nice woman in charge to use her computer to learn the meaning of this term, vulnus sclopet. I was certain the origin was Latin and I was right.

It turns out that vulnus sclopet is short for vulnus sclopetarium and it means gunshot wound. The soldiers were in the hospital with because they’d been shot. They’d been shot during the battle I am researching. A lot of soldiers were shot during that battle. Those that were shot and survived went to the hospital, where they were diagnosed as having a condition the doctors called vulnus sclopet.

Fame would not be knocking upon my door anytime soon.

“Why,” I asked the librarian, “didn’t the doctors simply write ‘gunshot’ in the column where the complaint is listed?”

“I guess they were pompous, even back then,” she answered.

Librarians are seldom wrong about anything.

Thanks for reading.

A name to avoid...

                Sometimes a descriptive short phrase can be magical. It can roll off the tongue and affix itself to people and events forever and anon.

          Phrases such as ‘wrong way.’

          You think of Cal’s Roy ‘Wrong Way’ Riegels, who recovered a fumble in the 1929 Rose Bowl game against Georgia Tech and returned it the wrong way. Riegels went 69 yards before he was caught and spun around by a teammate, but he was tackled at the Tech 3-yard line. At least nobody died, except maybe a few distraught bookies, when Riegels screwed up. Wanna win a bet? The name of the teammate who finally caught and turned Riegels around was Benny Lom.

          Riegels thought Lom was screaming in order to urge Riegels to greater speed as Lom chased Riegals down.

          Then there was Douglas Corrigan. A pilot, Corrigan wanted to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean in 1938. He had worked on Charles Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis craft that was the first to solo the big pond and Corrigan made some modifications to his own plane to try the trick himself. He filed a flight plan for a hop from New York to Ireland, but the plan was disallowed. So Corrigan changed his intended destination to somewhere else and flew across the Atlantic anyway, later claiming he’d gotten lost and gone the wrong way.

          You’ve heard of ‘Wrong Way’ Corrigan, right?

          Remember Jim Marshall? A defensive lineman for the Minnesota Vikings, Marshall picked up a fumble by the 49ers’ Billy Kilmer and raced about 64 yards for a score during an NFL game in 1964. The score turned out to be a safety for the San Francisco team because Marshall had run the wrong way. Whoever number 77 was for the 49ers that day, he was the first to shake Marshall’s hand after Marshall spiked the ball in the end zone. You can see it on You Tube. Ol’ number 77 did not wish to be left behind in the congratulatory rush.

          Marshall played many years in the NFL and was a star on some great defensive teams with the Vikings. So skilled was he that nobody called him Jim ‘Wrong Way’ Marshall. But they could have.

          Of course, we all make mistakes. Not long ago I selected the wrong path at the Chickamauga National Military Park and turned a 400-yard stroll into a five-hour marathon. It was an easy mistake to make, so I made it.

          And so it goes for all of us. Whatever the endeavor, you’re out there doing the best you can and you goof. Hopefully, this does not happen in front of a huge crowd in Pasadena, California but someone is going to notice. A friend or, perhaps, a co-worker points out your gaffe and you blurt out, “Why didn’t you stop me?”

          Or, as I muttered during my epic march around the Chickamauga battlefield last spring, “Where is Benny Lom when I really need him?”

          Don’t take this the wrong way, but thanks for reading.

Another point of view



My favorite image on Little Round Top. The statue of General Warren is to the right,
 looking toward the Confederate position on July 2, 1863. For me, this image represents
 the turning point of the battle of Gettysburg.



Continuing on the same thoughts as the previous blog, here are some images of the statue of General Warren on Little Round Top at Gettysburg. During my three visits to Gettysburg, I have probably collected 300 images of the General.

          In all that time, he’s never moved.

          Since the subject doesn’t move, the photographer has to and I’ve tried to keep in mind the historical importance of Warren’s contribution to the Union cause on July 2, 1863. The historic reference directs my points of view.

          My favorite Warren image is the one above, a distant shot where he looks right to left and seems to be watching over a vast area. That shot was taken in 2010.



Almost the same image as the first, but about half the distance and I
stood slightly more to the right.



          There is another image from about the same angle but at about half the distance. This photograph is more about the surroundings than it is about Warren. Little Round Top is a rocky little hill.





Warren at sunset.

          One day in 2011, I had been around the area for about eight hours. It was a long way beyond dinner time when storm clouds drifted above the northern sky. The sun was setting as well and so, without moving an inch, I started recording images every half a minute or so and the shot kept changing. This is less an historic image than a pretty one, but I like it anyway. The reader is invited to decide: Did my point of view change or did my subject change?





Warren's front.

          There is the standard front view from below Warren’s rock, which shows details of the front of the statue. I had to jump on and off some rather large boulders to get this image and then go jumping around the other way to get back to level ground. All this while holding my Nikon. But the other shots show the history and the distant landscape without revealing details of the statue itself and I had to get this image. You can’t be an effective photographer if you allow yourself to be lazy.

          From his perch on Little Round Top, Warren could see locations which have become iconic to history students: Seminary Ridge, the Devil’s Den, the Wheatfield and Cemetery Ridge. The modern visitor can see the Pennsylvania Memorial.

I have images of all those areas from the approximate spot where Warren stood all those years ago. But the images of the Warren statue make a bigger impact on me. I hope you enjoy them and I hope evolving photographers understand the importance of multiple points of view of a subject.

Thanks for looking and reading.

Point of View



This is the Tennessee Infantry memorial along Horseshoe Ridge at
Chickamauga. The memorial stands amid several position markers
for Tennessee regiments that were active on this ground during
the battle.



One of the first assignments a photography student must fulfill is the point of view assignment wherein the aspiring photographer must capture images of the same subject from a number of differing views. When I was a photo student, and as long as I have been an instructor’s assistant, the assignment was to shoot from five different views.

          Like every important lesson in life, there is a reason for the assignment. A photographer must learn to look at a subject from every possible viewpoint before determining which angle makes the best photograph. This is the first lesson on the path to becoming a successful photographer.

          For me it means more than just looking from different viewpoints. I shoot from every viewpoint I explore. When I’m using film, the process becomes expensive because I typically shoot several frames from each viewpoint. The solution to the problem of expense is, of course, to get over it.

          Properly composed images are the best solution to the issue of cost containment, but that does not change that fact that you need to try varying camera settings, make minor adjustments to your stance and make other similar modifications for each frame. A seemingly inconsequential alteration to any of the variables that go into a photograph can be the difference between ho-hum and holy cow!



The soldier atop the monument has
aged some, but he captures your
attention. This is one of my favorite
pieces of stonework in all of the
Civil War battlefield parks.



          The images here were taken at the Chickamauga National Military Park in Tennessee in 2011. They serve the point about the point of view assignment. I have made small notes in the captions in order to supply information for the history fans out there.

          Point of view includes time of day. I can assure you that I have not even considered photographing Chickamauga after dark, near dark or even in the hours approaching dark. But I’ve been there in the early morning (in good daylight) and nabbed some nice images.

          Point of view can include the time of year the photographer approaches a subject. I have walked the grounds at Chickamauga in the very early spring, before nature started turning things green again, and I have walked the same area in the early summer. The battle occurred September 18-20, 1863 and the colors on the battlefield are luscious that time of year.

          But there is a starkness in the early spring that makes a point about the battlefield. The tree branches are naked and the grass is thin and light. Everything seems to be a variation of brown and gray. There is a mood available for a photographer with a plan and the eye to see what is available.

The marker for the 118th Ohio Infantry Regiment is in the foreground. I
like this point of view because it illustrates how close the fighting was
on Horseshoe Ridge on September 20, 1863.

          When I walk the grounds of any battlefield, I have great enthusiasm for the task at hand. I am very interested in history. But I also walk with great respect for what happened on the ground beneath my feet. That is another important point of view.         

           For that reason, I study before I go to Chickamauga or Gettysburg. I typically go with a plan, expecting to photograph an area new for me. I need to know the history well enough to understand what each differing view represents, historically. Sometimes it works the other way; I’ll find something I don’t know about and I’ll photograph the heck out of a new discovery (new for me) so that when I research the history later, I can go back to my images and know what I am looking at.



The smaller stones are not grave markers. They are position
 markers for some of the Tennessee regiments that fought on
 the Ridge that day.



          That happened on Culp’s Hill at Gettysburg last summer. I found something I knew nothing about. Let me tell you, I covered the living daylights out of that small area with my Nikon. You want point of view? How about 150 images. I even got images of adjacent areas in order to make it easy to find the place again.

Guess what? The best shot of the bunch came from an adjacent area.

I should hasten to add that I shot those 150 images with a digital camera. My suggestion to get over the price of film only goes so far.

This view helps show the height of the statue and it illustrates
that the Confederates, in this case the men from Tennessee,
 came up a hill and out of the trees.

Having said all of the above, beginning photographers need to understand the importance of using different points of view, different camera settings and even different cameras (film, digital) as tools. Each tool has a purpose.

Look at the images here. Some are better than others. Some viewpoints work well, some do not. You have to explore each subject with a willingness to go beyond the obvious.

If you are willing to put in the time to learning this lesson, you’ll begin producing better images.

Thanks for reading.