A View from the Isle

Just got the call from a friend of Bradley’s that the Burnaby Board of Trade needs a photographer for their event tonight. Sorry to the folks at Launch Party v6 but I won’t be there this time.

[From Burnaby Board of Trade - Upcoming Events at the Burnaby Board of Trade]

Now I have to think about gear, and clothes and …

Wait I do have work before that.

Crap.

If you’re at the event, come over and say hi. I’ll be guy with the big honkin’ camera around his neck.

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Just got the call from a friend of Bradley’s that the Burnaby Board of Trade needs a photographer for their event tonight. Sorry to the folks at Launch Party v6 but I won’t be there this time.

[From Burnaby Board of Trade - Upcoming Events at the Burnaby Board of Trade]

Now I have to think about gear, and clothes and …

Wait I do have work before that.

Crap.

If you’re at the event, come over and say hi. I’ll be guy with the big honkin’ camera around his neck.

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I caught from Brian Solis—FlickrDown Pulls Pictures from the Cloud to Your PC — bub.blicio.us—and DownloadSquad—posts about FlickrDown and thought, wow that sounds cool until I read this comment on Brian’s post:

Brian, it appears this program allows the download of images even when the photographer does not allow downloads. It also strips the metadata from the photo, which is copyright violation.

So if you want to use if your own images, that’s one thing, but to use it for anyone else, without their permission, is theft.

Umm, whoops. I don’t blame the author, from the looks of it the app hasn’t been touched since June 2007, so it’s probably a project that has fallen by the wayside, but it raises the question of whether or not Flickr will let you block unauthorized downloads.

I turned on right-click save prevention on my SmugMug portfolio as well as not allowing people to buy the images, what about Flickr?

Photographers and other artists have a hard enough time protecting our works, much less earning money from them, now some one could just pull all my images from somewhere and use them? Good thing most of my images are watermarked now, but still.

Maybe I’m just getting my nose bent out of joint for nothing, but then again maybe I’m not…

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Fitting that after last night’s Net Tuesday on social media for change, that today is blog action day and that the topic is poverty.

I had already decided to do my post as a photo essay. This is my first photo essay, and I’m mostly happy with it.

Anyway, what I was thinking is that we often only think of poverty as being something in “some sections” of town, but really it’s everywhere. Since I moved to Vancouver in late July I’ve been more keenly aware of poverty. Not just in the Downtown Eastside, but in the “nice” neighborhoods, the malls, places where it seemed incongruous to me.

Having been personally touched by poverty, I wanted to try to express that not only is poverty everywhere, but that we have grown so accepting and accustomed to it that we ignore it.

For the action part of this exercise I would encourage you to donate to the organizations that are doing work on the ground helping people. I’m going to be donating to the Union Gospel Mission.

As it would happen, as I was coming towards the end of my walk I ran into a couple guys selling calendars with pictures from the Downtown Eastside.  The Hope In Shadows project looks amazing and the 2009 calendar inspired to my pics in black and white as well.

The rest of my Flickr set from my walk is in this slideshow:

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Over the weekend I went to Seattle for a little shopping and while Sheila was browsing bead stores (she makes amazing jewelry), I took pictures around the stores. At our last stop I was playing with small apertures for some landscapes (f/16 to be exact). I wasn’t really getting what I was looking for so after shooting a few other things, I decided to take a picture of an interesting light pole on the street and got this:

Well “wow” was the next thing out of my mouth.

I have been playing with motion blurs and trying to do them in full manual mode and having a tough time with the exposure settings. This was in aperture priority and well I was amazed at the results.

Yes, if I had taken a class, read more, asked around more I would probably have learned this sooner, but I didn’t I discovered it by accident. I think discovering things by accident is way more fun, even more satisfying than just being told how to do it. Now I have more insight into how to compose and take pictures. I understand a little more about the balance of ISO, shutter speed, and aperture. Now I’m ready to experiment more.

Here is a slide show of the whole motion blurred set from that street:

Tomorrow is BlogActionDay and I intend on doing a photo essay on the subject of poverty. I’m not going to wander to the Downtown Eastside either, I’m going to look for poverty in the places where you wouldn’t expect it.

That will certainly be fun.

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I think you will excuse me a little me a bragging about the latest issue of FeedFront—Issue 3 : FeedFront—because the cover picture is one of my pictures from Affiliate Summit East from this past August. Well, that one and about a dozen other pictures I took from the conference scattered throughout the issue as well. Yes, Shawn and Missy hired me to take pictures for the conference, but it is one thing for the pictures to be good enough for online/Flickr, a whole other thing to be published.

This makes two covers and at least one picture in every issue of FeedFront thus far. Hmm, Issue 4 might be a tough one…

There is my bit of bragging for the day. I’ll go back to being just Tris now.

You can download the PDF version of FeedFront Issue 3 and check out all the pics.

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Like all art forms, photography is a life-long pursuit. Of course, we all “learned” how to take pictures in a few minutes—especially with today’s point-n-shoot cameras—but for those of us who strive to go beyond the basic snapshot, it takes work. Work and a ton practice, patience, and humility. The practice part is pretty easy. Take lots of pictures. Experiment. Emulate pics that you like and see if you can do the same thing. Humility?

Yes. I don’t think there is a photographer worth his/her salt who can’t learn something new. For me learning how to use white cards/gray cards for setting white balance (including that blacktop is a great sub for a gray card in a pinch) and using bracketing better in my shots. Yes, I’ve been taking pics for a long time, but I know that every time I go out to shoot I learn something and get just a little better.

All that said, bracketing, playing with settings, gray cards, I do love my auto-settings.

First off, I pretty much stick to aperture priority mode. I like wide-open apertures (usually f/1.8-2.2), especially with my prime lenses (50mm f/1.8 and 85mm f/1.8) for the tight depth of field and clarity. I guess that’s my “style”. Regardless, this means that shutter speed is up to the camera.

I don’t stop there though, I’ve learned that auto-ISO is really handy. Even on my short walk going from sun to cloudy to shade for the best results I’d have to tweak my ISO often. With auto-ISO I pick a good ISO for the walk in general, then let it float. Yeah I know that if I picked and ISO I’d have more control, but I check after a series of pics what ISO the camera picked so I can see if I like it and want to shoot again.

I also I stick to auto white balance instead of flipping around to different settings. Both the D80 and D300 have pretty decent auto WB and because I shoot in RAW/NEF I don’t really have to worry about it. I always look at each pic and adjust the tone, white balance, and contrast (I love Lightroom’s “strong contrast” preset), so I get a chance to tweak a bit. Of course if I’m lucky enough to have blacktop in the pic, then my WB is just a click away (another great feature of the digital darkroom, IMHO).

There is something to be said for setting everything by hand, and I do this sometimes, but the freedom of letting the camera do some of the work so I can just focus on composition and practice is freeing.

Of course I’m not not always happy with the results, and that’s when I tweak more for another shot.

Practice, experiment, practice, learn.

And one more tip: read the manual. As obtuse as it can be, sometimes you learn a great new feature or two.

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I’ve been taking pics for about 30 yrs (yes I love saying that, because it reminds me of taking pics of my grandmother’s birthday party) and moved up into the world of DSLRs a year ago (just before BlogWorldExpo 2007 in fact) from a nice Canon point and shoot. This week I really stepped it up to Nikon D300 (I’ve been using a D80 for the past year which is also an excellent camera and I highly recommend it) and well I have a new lens that, well, let’s say cannon is a apt description of it.

My friend Aaron recently stepped into the world of DSLRs and blogged about his thoughts on how to do it right:

I take my camera everywhere I go now. Out of every 100 photos, I toss 90. I insist on using pure manual settings, because there’s no better way, in my mind, to learn than to trial and error it. When I say manual, I mean manual. I manually focus. I usually keep my ISO around 200, but I can change that. Shutter and aperture settings are all adjusted on every shot.

Recently, I’ve had a number of people mention that they plan to buy their first DSLR camera. Some of these usually follow this up by mentioning really high-end cameras like the Canon 5D or the Nikon D700 as cameras they want.

My response is always the same… Why?

As rookie photographers, they don’t know why. They just know it’s better. Which is true, but that’s not the point.

Here’s what rookie photographers need to focus on when picking up a brand new DSLR camera. Source: Buying Digital SLR Cameras

I think he’s mostly right. Here’s how I’ve been teaching my kids (and my daughter is a gifted photographer even at the young age of 11), play with Auto first. Get a feel for how to frame things. See what happens when you take pictures under different conditions.

After Auto, I like Program. You have more control, but the camera still does a heck of a lot of the work for you. This is when you get to play a bit, see what happens when you tweak this or that.

After years of using various auto settings, I switched to Program in the months before my jump to the D80 (encouraged by Tim Bray and Derek Miller). Wow. It made a huge difference, even with a point an shoot.

When I got the D80, I played in Program for a while before switching to Aperture priority (where I think you can have the most fun).

I shoot in Aperture priority most of the time. I do switch to manual for some shots, especially when in low light and trying different new techniques.

Aaron is right, you do need to understand light and framing before really investing in gear. No, I can’t always explain how I get a shot (honestly some are just blind luck, getting a look or movement for example). Kris Krug gave me great tips (read instruction) today, which reminded me we all have a lot to learn from each other and that I really do need to brush up on my fundamentals.

Notice I attacked the second part of the question first? Yeah that was on purpose, because the real answer is that the two are tied together.

You learn a DSLR before you have one. Meaning, figure out what you can do with what you have. Point and shoots are great cameras. Nothing wrong with them. I keep mine around for fast and easy shots. It’s my “spare”.

I didn’t upgrade really until I knew that I wanted to have the flexibility that a DSLR provides. I didn’t move up to the D300 until I a) wanted to be serious about going pro and b) knew that I needed the power it came with.

DLSRs are fun, so much fun. Try one. Yes, I’ll probably bring both bodies, all my lenses, tripod, and such to BarCamp/PhotoCamp this weekend. See what you can do. Then see how much the they cost. Then see how much gear costs. I’ve bought three lenses, filters, three bags, flash, gray cards, photo box … yeah it adds up.

In the meantime, have fun.

Just shoot and have fun.

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As photographers we’ve all had the situation where someone has asked us why we’re taking pictures and/or asked us to stop. While taking photographs in public is a right in the US and Canada, it’s a good idea to know your rights, the rules, and a few tips.

I’ve been challenged a few times and have been able to deal with the situations with body, camera, and images intact (my media pass from an Apple event helps…it says MEDIA on it). But the question is, when do I have the right to take pictures and when don’t I? When do I have the right to but it might not be a good idea?

From Photojojo I found a great post for US folks on your rights as a photographer and a link to a post that covers the rules in Canada.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. Take the advice here for what it is, advice. For specific legal questions or situations you should consult legal counsel.

Myself, one of the rules I follow is not to take pictures of kids unless I ask the parents first. Meaning, a specific picture of that child. Sometimes kids are in the background when I’m taking pictures in the park of my own kids and if asked I would delete pictures if a parent asked. I’m also very careful not to include extraneous youngsters in my shots though. Also, when I take a picture of someone, I generally will show them the picture and give them my card in case they’d like a copy.

From all the advice and rights I’ve read the one thing that I keep reading is to keep your cool, don’t give in, don’t give up your camera, and call the police if you need to.

But most of all, it is your right to take pictures…

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When I only had a Canon point and shoot camera I stuck to Automatic and the presets for most of my pictures.  Then I got into Program mode and started to play with white balance and such.  With my D80,  shot in auto a little bit, but pretty much started with aperture priority from the get go.

However, is shooting in auto or one of the presets a bad thing?  According to Natalie Norton writing on digital photography school, shooting in automatic has a lot of benefits:

ANY friend of mine who comes to me early on in their photography “career” asking for lessons is forbidden from shooting in any mode other than AUTO for at LEAST 3-6 months. In my mind that’s enough time to get your framing style down to the point where it’s just, for lack of a better word, automatic. . . second nature. When that happens, THEN you’re ready to explore other settings. I’ve known too many photographers who are technically off the chart but can’t frame an image worth poo. Don’t fall into that trap by plugging up the artist in you by focusing too much on the technical aspect. It will come. It will. I PROMISE. Source: 4 Reasons Not to Write off Shooting in Automatic

I’ve been shooting long enough that I’m pretty good at framing (I can always improve of course), but the freedom of auto, and the other presets, does let you focus on the subject not the settings.

So on Saturday the kids and I went to a park by the ocean and I figured it was the perfect time to give this a shot (so to speak).

This was shot in automatic mode:

It’s not bad, a little washed out I think.  The depth of field is a little too much for my liking, as well.  It’s pretty good though.  This is a shot using some of my standard aperture priority settings (f/2.5 ISO 250, -0.3 exposure, more vivid colour):

Of course I like this one better.  But … I think for general practice I’m going to play with automatic and other presets so I can work on framing better pictures and capturing things that I might lose in fussing with settings.

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I’m so excited about this.  At Affiliate Summit West in Vegas last month I took a lot of pictures (Affiliate Summit set on Flickr) so as it was wrapping up I told Missy and Shawn that I’d be happy to be their official photographer for future summits.

Well as I say "luck favours the bold"–the hired me for Affiliate Summit Boston Aug 10-12!

I’ve told a lot of you already and Kris Krug gave me one of the best compliments I could get–that my pics were certainly good enough for that gig.  Wow.

I was practicing big time at SXSW (SXSWi 2008 Flickr set) and I’m pretty sure that I’m up for the challenge.  I’ve been working on my workflow and technique, still needs some work though.  I’m going to have to save up for an external flash, though.  The D80’s built in flash is great, but I think an external flash is going to take my photography to the next level.

Wow.  Who would have thought it …

P.S. Yes, I know the comments are broken here … I’m working on it.

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