Jay Maisel Workshop #5

Jay did not like this photo.  I liked it.

Jay:  What is this photo about?  I have no idea what you are trying to convey here.  There is nice light and an interesting shadow on the Brooklyn Bridge and then there are two homeless people.  What am I suppose to look at?  What am I suppose to think?  Did you trip your shutter by mistake?

Me:  It’s all about opposites—the largeness of the bridge versus the smallness of the men; the beautiful golden light on the top of the bridge versus the murky shadows on the bottom of the bridge; the cleanliness of the top of the bridge versus the dirt of the bottom of the bridge; and finally the dejected look of one man versus the smiling of the other man. 

Jay:  Yea, right.

You:  ?  

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 at 300mm, ISO 1,600, f/8 and 1/180^th of second.

Post Processing:  NONE!

Interruption of Jay Maisel Workshop

I interrupt my posts about Jay Maisel workshop for an important message:  today is JD’s birthday.   She is 29.  Not sure how the math works:  she is 29, we have been married 45 years and her son is 43 years old.  But, then again, she is our mathematician in the family.

For her birthday, she got Blaze and Pepper.  Two black, female toy puddles—actually one of them is mine, but I thought that I would get a few bonus point here claiming that she got two. 

Blaze and Pepper are a continuation of our long line of great black toy poodles:  Marble who was with us for 14 years, and then Elvis (16 years) and Sam (18 years).  Blaze and Pepper have some big shoes to fill, but just look at them, you know they are capable of fulfilling those shoes. 
Actually, we currently do not have them.  They are only five weeks old and we will not get them until they are eight weeks old, sometime around November 15th.   The breeder expects Blaze to be about 5 1/2 to 6 pounds and Pepper to be about 4 1/2 to 5 pounds.  A couple of doggie sumo wrestlers, for sure.
After seeing the photograph, Chloe, our granddaughter, named Pepper and JD decided on Blaze because of the white on her throat (the same as Marble). 
We look forward to bringing our new family members home.

Enjoy.

Jay Maisel Workshop #4

I have had several people ask me:  “What exactly did Jay teach you about street photography?”  “Could we have more details about your process in taking these shots?”

I guess the biggest thing that I learned from Jay was “slow-down”.  Walk slowly; take-in everything around you.  When you see something interesting, study it to determine what you want to do.  Then slowly raise your camera to your eye (“don’t scare your prey with sudden movement”).  Slowly and carefully frame your subject.  Remember to look around the edges to make sure that you have no distracting elements.  Forget:  “I will fix it in Photoshop”.

Jay liked today’s photo.  He liked that I was down at the little girls level—we were looking eye to eye.  He liked that she was looking straight at me—that generated a feeling of connection between me (and ultimately the viewer) and the little girl.  He liked how the stroller’s lines added a dynamic element to the photo and how the balloon acted as an anchor and also eliminated a lot of bright pink that would have taken the viewer's eye away from the little girl's face.  He did not like that I shot the photo at f/5.6.  He believes that for ultimate sharpness, you need to shoot every lens about one to two f-stops up from its maximum f-stop, which would be f/8 to f/11 for this lens.  He also did not like that I shot this in landscape orientation.  It showed too much uninteresting space to the left of the little girl.

I agreed with all of his comments.  For my blog, I have committed the mortal sin of cropping today’s photo to illustrate Jay’s point about landscape vs. portrait orientation.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 at 200mm, ISO 1,600, f/5.6 and with shutter speeds 1/250^th of second.

Post Processing:  NONE!

Jay Maisel Workshop #3

What did Jay say about this one?  Well, it went something like this.

Jay:  Larry, what were you thinking when you took this?  Better yet, were you thinking when you took this image?

Larry:  I liked the way the little girl was looking at me.

Jay:  Did you notice the eyes of the doll?

Larry:  No, not really.  I only saw them when the photo came-up on my computer.

Jay:  So, you openly admit before me and your fellow students that what helps make this photo a really good street photo was just a lucky accident?

Larry:  Well, yes, I guess it was.

Jay:  In street photography, accidents happen.  Sometimes the accident helps your photos, and sometimes it &%$#*! your photo.  Accept both and just move on.  What helps make this photo is contrast:  the little girl’s look is so intense and the mother’s look is so passive; the dark little girl with her almost black eye and the lily-white doll with bright blue eyes.  The contrast draws you into the photo.  It makes you wonder.  I like this one.

Larry:  Thanks.

Jay:  You thanking me?  You should be on your knees thanking the photo gods for the blessings they bestowed on you.

Enjoy.

Jay Maisel Workshop #2

Before delving into today’s photograph, I need to provide you with the ground rules of Jay’s workshop.  The basic rule is:  what you shoot is what you present.  There is no Lightroom or Photoshop work that is allowed on anything that you print.  No cropping, no setting white and black points, no sharpening.  NOTHING can be done to your images other than downloading them and resizing (maximum length and/or width) them for proper presentation.  You shoot and present your images as JPEGs.

I try to know how my camera works, but since I never shoot in JPEG, I knew very little about how the various JPEG setting worked within my Nikon D3.  As a result of this, I was forced to quickly learn about the various sharpening, color saturation and contrast setting available within my camera.  I must admit, it took me a couple of tries before I got the camera setting the way that I wanted them.  The final setting that I settled on were:  sharpening at 7, contrast +1, brightness at 0, color saturation at +1, and hue at 0.  With these settings I felt that my images had just enough pop to catch the viewer’s eye, but not that “over the top” look that you often get when the sharpness and color saturation are pushed to the limit.

In the spirit of the workshop, all photos presented as Jay Maisel Workshop photos are JPEG images without any adjusting or retouching in Lightrooom or Photoshop. 

Both of the photos that I am presenting today were taken in New York City's Chinatown.  I had asked permission to photograph both of the subjects before I took the photos but I waited a little time to allow them to go back to their “normal” activity before taking the shots.  I wanted the images to be about normal life in the big city.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 at 200mm, ISO 2,200, f/8 and with a shutter speed of 1/500^th of a second.

Post Processing:  NONE!

Jay Maisel Workshop #1

Meet Jay Maisel.  

Last week, as part of his workshop in New York City, I spent 8:30 AM to 10:00 PM from Monday through Friday with Jay.  The workshop in a word was mind-boggling!

Every day I was completely challenged by Jay’s instructions, words, works and of course, that special Jay-look that said:  “Have you lost your #@!*& mind?”  Jay’s instruction seems so simple when he explains them and then demonstrates them through his own work.  But then, you hit the streets of New York City and you feel like someone who has lost his “#@!*& mind.”

Did I learn anything?   Probably more than I will ever know. 

Did I enjoy myself?  Unquestionably.

Will I be a better photographer?  Time will tell.

Today’s photo of Jay was taken in his studio giving one of my fellow students one of his special looks.

Enjoy.

What I Did on My Vacation #17

Here is my final photo from Machu Picchu.  It is of JD walking up one of the many stairs that you will experience if you got there.  If you plan on going, a little advice before you go:  Stairmaster!

Enjoy.

What I Did on My Vacation #16

As you look past Machu Picchu to Huayan Picchu, you see a mountain covered with plants.  Yet at the top of the mountain there are many Inca ruins.  No one seems to know exactly why the buildings are there.  The most common believe is that the buildings were used as an outpost to survey the surroundings for possible enemy movements.   But again, because the Incas had no written language, there exact purpose will never be known.

Looking at the people in these photos, I think you can get some idea as to how hard the climbing is.

Enjoy

What I Did on My Vacation #15

You might ask:  what does a well maintained trail look like?  It looks like this.

Enjoy

What I Did on My Vacation #14

Today’s photo was taken from the top of Huayna Picchu (the mountain directly behind Machu Picchu).  According to the Lonely Plant tour book on Peru:  “at first glance, it would appear that Huayna Picchu is a difficult climb, but there is a well maintained trail; although the ascent is steep, it’s not technically difficult.”  Not sure what that means.  What I do know is that almost everyone that we encountered on the trail was gasping for air and making frequent stops to rest.  Access to the mountain is limited and you have to obtain a separate ticket to climb Huayna Picchu, but I think it is worth the effort.

Today’s photo is not one of my favorite shots from Machu Picchu. I am presenting it because you do not often see photos of Machu Picchu from Huayna Picchu.  I think this angle gives you a much better perspective of how large Machu Picchu is, its overall design and its relationship to the surroundings.

Enjoy

What I Did on My Vacation #13

Well, we have finally arrived at what I really wanted to photograph—Machu Picchu.  Before I go into how and why I took the photograph that I took, I would like to provide you with a little background.  Photographing Machu Picchu is hard.  Why?  Basically, three reason:  (1) it has been photographed so many times and as a result, the bar is quite high for any photograph to be judged as good; (2) the orientation of the sun from left to right which cast hard shadows on many parts of the ruins and the harsh light because of the altitude makes taking a pleasing photograph very difficult; and, (3) the limited access (open at 7:00 AM and closing at 5:00 PM) makes for rather large crowds and poor lighting.

Before I discuss today’s photo, I want to say that I got lucky.  We stayed at the hotel at the top of the mountain and as a result I did not have to worry about catching the last bus (at 5:00 PM) down the mountain.  I got to stay to the very last minute of the park’s opening.  Second, clouds moved-in late in the afternoon and softened the light and provided some great rays-of-light that added to the photo.

I tried two compositions of Machu Picchu: one showing almost all of the ruins and the one presented here which shows only a small portion of the ruins.  I shoot seven shots (+3 EV to -3EV) with the camera on a tripod, so that I could use HDR, if I wanted.  In the image presented I used four of the shots (-3 EV to 0 EV) and combined them using nik HDR Pro (which is becoming my favorite program for HDR).  Because I wanted to soften the HDR effect, I then used nik Color Efex Pro’s glamour glow filter.  I think the result is details with a soft feel.  Finally, I dodged and burn various elements within the photo.

Enjoy

What I Did on My Vacation #12

One of the things that I immediately noticed as I walked around Cuzco is the bright colors.  Almost everyone seems to be dressed in bright colors with lots of geometric designs —especially, the children.  In today’s photo, I simply liked the colors and how they seemed to be amplified by the dull brown and grey of the road and the ruins in the background.

Enjoy

What I Did on My Vacation #11

After returning from Sacsayhuman, we treated to a fabulous sunset.  Looking at the dynamic range, I knew that I would need to use HDR to adequately capture what I was seeing.  My tripod was back in the hotel (resting from the travel, I guess), so I had to employ one of Barry Armer’s techniques—hand-held bracketed exposures.  I braced myself against a lamp post and shot five exposures at one-stop increments (+2 to -2 EV).

Last week, I watched an interesting video by Kevin Kubota on [FRAMED] about post-processing HDR shots when you do not have a steady tripod.  Essentially, he exports all of the exposures from Lightroom or Bridge into Photoshop as layers.  He then aligns the layers within Photoshop and then exports the various layers back as individual files.  He then runs his normal HDR program to convert all the exposures into an HDR image.   I tried this on a couple HDR wanta-bes and found that it does seem to reduce the ghosting that you get with out-of-register images.  If you are interested in watching the entire video you can find it here.   (As a side note, Kevin Kubota has presented some good post-production techniques for Lightroom and Photoshop—you might want to check them out at [FRAMED]).

Today’s image is of La Catedral on the Plaza de Amas in Cuzco.  The Plaza is the main gathering point for many tourist and residents throughout the day, and as a result, many people are moving always around in front of La Catedral—not the best conditions for using HDR.  Solution:  crop the people out!  I just felt that trying to fix all the blur of people and cars would take too much times, especially since they are really not the main subjects of the photo.

Enjoy.

What I Did on My Vacation #10

You have now left the Galapagos Islands and you are in Peru—Cuzco, Peru to be exact.  Cuzco was the capital of the Incas.  On a hilltop overlooking Cuzco is Sacsayhuman, which is an outstanding representation of Inca engineering and building skills.  Stones for the ruins were quarried over four miles from the ruins.  The Incas did not have any metal tools to quarry the stones or wheels to move them.  Just image the effort that was required to put these stones in place.  Complicating the planning and building even more was the fact that the Incas did not have a written language.  With all of this in mind, I must admit my mind was blown.

The first things that struck me as I walked around the ruins was the precision of the stone work and the shear size of the stones.  Today, I present three photos that hopefully will communicate this:  the first photo is of JD’s hand and a seam between two of the stones; the second photo is of JD standing in front of the largest stone (estimated to be 350 tons) in the ruins; and, the final photo is of a key that was used to join the stones.

Enjoy.

What I Did on My Vacation #9

 

Before leaving my photographic tour of the Galapagos Islands, I would like to answer a few questions that I have gotten regarding visiting there.

First, yes, access to the islands is controlled however you still have quite a lot of freedom to explore most of the islands.  The reason that I say “most of the islands” is because they periodically put certain islands “off limits” so that the vegetation and wildlife can recover.  The government appears to be doing a very good job striking a balance between tourism and the environment—even though I am sure that both sides (tourism business and environmentalists would argue that point with me.

Second, why the photographic restrictions, like “no flash”?   Don’t know and really do not care.  My attitude on the “no flash” rule is that:  (1) it’s there country and they can make the rule; and (2) it does not seem to be an unreasonable rule consider how fragile the environment is.  Personally, I get a lot more upset when I encounter “authority” figures in the United States that tell me that I cannot photograph in this or that public place.  I recently watched a video on Fstoppers ( http://fstoppers.com/page/4)  that dealt with this very issue.  You might want to check it out.

Finally, would I go back to the Galapagos Islands?  The straightforward answer is “no.”  But, that is not because the Galapagos Islands are not a great place to visit and photograph, because they are.  Rather, it is because there are still lots of places in the world that I want to see, and of course, photograph.

Today, I present a few random shots.

Enjoy.

What I Did on My Vacation #8

Last week one of my friends asked me why I did not include tortoises in my list of animals in the Galapagos Islands.  Well, I guess because I have never gotten a good photograph of any tortoise.  Like the last trip, all my tortoise photographs look more like big rocks in a field rather than extremely long-necked reptiles from a different era.

All of the tortoises that I have seen in the Galapagos Islands are in the highlands of the islands.  As a result, they are generally in tall grass with misty rain falling on them—not exactly the shot normally seen in the travel brochures.

Here are my best photos of the tortoises and their environment.

Enjoy.

What I Did on My Vacation #7

Before I get into today’s post, I want to answer a question that Ellen posed in her comment abut Friday’s post—do I consider these (my posting) print ready?  The short answer is no.  All of them would require sharpening and probably some additional dodging and burning.  As to specifics for each picture:  I would remove a lot of the specular highlights in the classical crab shot because I think they take your attention away from the subject; I would probably not print the crab in the ice plant because the ice plant leaves (?) directly front of the crab take away from the subject and I am too lazy to spend the time required to remove them from the photo; and the final shot is probably the one closest to “print ready”.

In my What-I-Did-on-My-Vacation-#3, I said: “As to the Galapagos Islands, I would have to say that the landscape is nice but not spectacular.”  Well, several of my co-travels on boat to issue with me in emails.  They completely disagree with me; they thought the landscapes and seascapes were spectacular.

The first photo is our group exploring one of the islands.  The plant life you see is quite common to many of the islands.  The reds, greens and yellows go well with the blue, overcast skies.  The second photo (taken with the Canon G-12 from a Zodiac) shows a granite island take through an opening in another island.  Here, I liked the framing of the island and the contrast of the warm colors of the rock and the cool colors of the sky and ocean.  The final photo is more-or-less a typical shot of the wet side of most islands.  I think that our guide said that the wet sides of the islands were generally characterized by cliffs.  

Enjoy.

What I Did on My Vacation #6

Today, I plan to finish-up photos of the Big Four—sea lions, iguanas, birds and crabs—with Crabs.

Before we went on vacation, I was sitting down with my grandchildren, viewing photographs of the Galapagos Islands and Machu Picchu.  As I always do, I asked them what photo they would like me to take for them.  Cole wanted a shark eating a sea lion (not likely), and of course, Cam added a “me, too.”  Chloe wanted a photo of “bright-colored crab”, to which, Cam added another “me, too.”

The traditional shot of crabs is against the black volcanic rock.  And, why should it be the classic?  Brightly colored red, yellow and blue crabs set off beautifully against the black rock.  I is almost like setting-up a black backdrop to take a portrait of a beautiful light skinned, blond woman.  The black backdrop just makes the colors and the light features more dominate.  The only trick to this type of photo is to realize that your in-camera meter will want to turn the black rock into 18% grey, so you must set your EV compensation to at least -2 EV.  You can try to do a post-processing adjustment, but I have found that trying to save washed-out, over exposed colors is almost impossible. 

After getting my traditional shot in the bag, I started looking for shots that you normally do not see.  I found crab in my second shot about 400 feet from the water, laying in an ice plant.  Here, you have color on color, which, to me, just seems to help illustrate just how colorful the crabs are.

My final crab photo was a challenge to get.  Why?   First, because the crabs in water are very fast and they tend to move away from you as soon as you get close; and, second, because overall scene is very bright with a lot of specular highlights which again fools your in-camera meeting.  So, how did I solve these problems?  As I wrote earlier, I used a polarizing filter to eliminate many of the specular highlights.  In addition, I generally waited until a cloud was in front of the sun and then I would start firing away.  In the final photo, I like how the three primary colors—red, yellow and blue—stick out and how the rock covered-in green algae seems to point directly out the subject.

Enjoy.

What I Did on My Vacation #5

Yesterday, I had lunch with a friend.  During the course of our lunch, my Galapagos Islands photos became a topic.  He wanted to know why I was not putting in technical data on my photos so he was curious about how the photos were taken and what post processing was done on most of the photos that I have posted.

As to how all the photos were taken, they were taken with my Nikon D3, set at variable ISO (up to ISO 1,600 with a minimum shutter speed of 1/180^th of a second), a Nikon 28-300mm, f/3.5-5.6 lens and NO flash (not allowed in the Galapagos Islands).   I also often resorted to using automatic bracketing (three shots at one-stop increments) to make sure that I got the photo was properly exposed. 

 Because there are so many animals that have almost no fear of humans, you can more-or-less shop for your shot.   As an example for the first photo of the iguana posted last Friday, I walked up and down a row of four iguanas that were perched on rocks.  I was looking for a simple, pleasing background and light falling on the iguana’s face.  After “shopping” for several minutes, I selected the one that you saw.  Normally, in wild live photography, you just cannot do that and that is one reason that I really admire wildlife photographers, especially bird photographers.

As to post-processing, it has been done totally in Lightroom 3 (Camera RAW).  The processing generally includes making sure that I have a good white and black point set, tweaking color hue, saturation and luminosity, adjusting clarity and vibrance, using various tone curves, cropping, using post-crop vignetting and occasionally using the adjustment brush to lighten or darken various parts of a photo.  The overall adjustment time would probably be less that two minutes on all the photographs presented.

Today’s topic:  BIRDS.  Following is my usual disclaimer:  I AM NOT A BIRID PHOTOGRAPHER; I TAKE BAD BIRD PHOTOGRAPHS.  But, I felt that I had to include birds because they are such an important part of the Galapagos Islands experience.

I chose the first photo of a Blue-Footed Booby because it illustrates the lack of fear that the birds have of humans and shows how hard the light was during many of our hikes on the islands.  These birds have a tendency to stand (and nest) on the designated paths and will generally not move when you walk by them.  In this photo, I am about four feet in front of the bird and the legs are about two feet behind the bird. 

Second photo is one of the blue feet of the Blue-Footed Booby.  I really wanted a photo of a Blue-Footed Booby doing its dance (we saw it several times on our first visit to the Galapagos Islands) but I never saw any dance.  In the photo, I wanted to show-off what makes the bird unique.

The final photo is of a duck (forgot the name) taken in the highlands on an overcast day.  I really liked how the bold, vivid colors of the duck contrasted with the soft, muted colors of the reflection in the water.

Enjoy.

What I Did on My Vacation #4

Before getting to today’s photos, an answer to a question that I got on the last post: how do I get such rich, saturated colors?  Two things contribute to the saturated colors: (1) almost all of the photos that I took on vacation were taken with a polarizing filter; and, (2) I generally underexpose my photos by ½ to 1½ stops.  Underexposing the photo will keep you from washing-out the colors.

Today’s subject is iguana.  Little doubt about it, iguanas are not exactly pretty, but they do have character—like an old, wrinkled man.  I have no idea how many different species of iguanas there are but it seems like every island in the Galapagos had at least three or four different ones.

In photographing the iguanas, I tried to emphasize their textured skin and their bright distinct colors.  To me, the real trick of getting a decent iguana photos was isolating them from the background.  Of course, that means getting ground-level and looking at the iguana eyeball to eyeball.

Enjoy.

What I Did on My Vacation #3

Before getting into today’s photo, I want to provide a little background.  First, camera equipment:  I went light—Nikon D3, Nikon 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6, Nikon 50mm f/1.4, three filters, cable release, two Nikon SB800s, tripod, Canon G12 and of course, lots of memory cards.  Second, shooting during the “golden hours” was very limited both in the Galapagos Islands and at Machu Picchu.  Both places put access restrictions on visitors.  As a result, almost all photos that I will be presenting were taken during the hours from 9:00 AM until 5:30 PM.  Third, you are not allowed to use flash in the Galapagos Islands.  Finally, you cannot disturb the animals resting place or get within six feet of animal (if they come to you, there is no limit to how close they get to you—sounds a little like a double standard!).

As to the Galapagos Islands, I would have to say that the landscape is nice but not spectacular.   Yes, there is clear blue water and some interesting plant life, but it is the animals and their interaction with humans that gets your attention.  All the islands have the big four animals—sea lions, crabs, iguanas and birds.

Today, I present three photos of sea lions.  I like the first because of the graceful lines that the sea lion is forming and how the light sets him/her off from the background.  As to the second one, how could you not like a photo of a baby sea lion begging for a little attention.  And, as to the final photo, I just like it.

Enjoy.

What I Did on My Vacation #2

It seems that I have forgotten how to post my blog.  I prepared my blog as normal and I thought that I set it to post on Friday morning, but alas, when I looked today, no blog posting.  It seems that I had merely saved the posting as a draft.  So, here is Friday’s post on Sunday.

Our vacation consisted of visits to Quito and Otavalo, Ecuador (3 days), Galapagos Islands (9 days on the Mary Anne, a 216-foot, 3-masked barquentine sailing ship), Cusco (3 days), Urubamba Valley, the sacred valley of the Incas (1 day) and Machu Picchu (3 days).  Our transportation consisted of seven airplanes, one sailing vessel, eighteen Zodiac rides, five buses, two ferry-boats, six automobiles and lots of walking.  In short, it was not a “laying around the pool, sipping wine and eating cheese” vacation.

JD and I went to Galapagos Islands in 1992 and both of us, consider that trip to be one of our best vacations.   

The Galapagos is a very special place. Why?  Because humans expect animals to fear them and that is not the case in the Galapagos Islands.   

There is something very special about sitting somewhere and having a baby sea lion crawl over to you (first photo) and then start to play with your boot (second photo).  The little guy played with my boot for about five minutes and then wondered off to investigate a lizard laying on a rock.

Hopefully, the photos that I present over the next few weeks will give you a sampling of what JD and I experienced.  Today’s photos are more about my experience than trying to present excellent photographs or “works of art.”

What I Did on My Vacation #1

Looking at today’s photo, I am sure that no one has any idea of where JD and I went on our vacation.  A few of you probably guessed:  Disney World.  Nope, that’s where the grandchildren went.

Machu Picchu is a place that I have wanted to visit ever since I first saw a photo of it in National Geographic when I was about twelve years old—it has taken me 53 years to get there, but the wait was worth it!  For the most part, I am disappointed when I finally get to see the great wonders of the world.  Machu Picchu was not a disappointment.  It was everything that I thought it would be and more.

Over the next few weeks, I will show various photos that I took both at Machu Picchu and the Galapagos Islands where we also went on our vacation.Today’s photo is JD in front of Machu Picchu.  Not a lot of fancy camera work here—exposure compensation dialed back one f-stop, flash pointed a little above and to the right of JD’s face, and the sun used as a hair light.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 at 36mm, ISO 900, f/8 and with shutter speeds 1/180^th of second.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 3—set white and black points, added clarity and vibrance, and adjusted hue and saturation of various colors.

Photoshop CS5—used nik Color Efex Pro glamour glow filter to add