Your interests can lead to more

Some of the planes flying in formation

This weekend I went to the Good Neighbor Day Open House Airshow at DeKalb-Peachtree Airport. This brought back memories from my time in Civil Air Patrol in high school.

This made me think of how an early obsession playing GI Joe grew through the years in my life. It was this interest in getting dressed up in military outfits that led me to Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts and then to Civil Air Patrol.

Pitts aerobatic plane doing stunts

I learned in each organization new things that people who wore those uniforms got to do. This interest was expanded and led me to enjoy technology. I learned in CAP for example how planes fly and how to use a compass and map to get around. You had to know this to help with search and rescue missions.

While at the air show I met a friend who grew up just blocks from the airport. He was so influenced by the airport that he went to Georgia Tech and majored in aerospace engineering.

Crowd watches a Pitts Plane

While he is not doing that today, he too was seeing how an interest helped to start a journey.

Army had some of their helicopters for the crowd to see up close.

Can you remember earlier interests and did this help lead you to where you are today?

The A-10 Warthog (Thunderbolt II)

Paratroopers presenting the colors

Writing for a blog has opened my eyes to differences between words and pictures

What will I blog about today? Then the idea comes.  Often I have had a lot of ideas that I could easily write about, but I have no visuals to show.

However, I can look at photos and then find something I can share that I learned and have an example to show you.  I prefer to work this way.

Today I am doing the opposite.

When I write I have a slow build up to when the storyline is established. Once this happens I write away and the time after I finished the idea to editing the final product is very short.

One of the ways I come up with a storyline is through reading or conversations. They spark an idea and then I might Google to research and gather more material. I might find a quote that helps make the point more emphatically than my wording can do. Coming up with a lead or a hook for me is the when the story then just flows quickly onto the page.

Graph to show how I work with words to a story. When I work in photography to tell a story the workflow is so different. I may have an idea or been given one by someone to cover.  I usually make phone calls and talk to the subjects before showing up.  At this point I have already got a pretty good idea of the story. Once I arrive I allow the story to go another direction and try not to force it. I do see if things are going as I expected and if they are then great, if not I must then decipher what the story really is all about. To me the pinnacle moment with the photography in story telling is when I have a moment that tells the story pretty much by itself.  Once I have this "decisive moment" I then continue to shoot.  I look for ways to introduce the subject/story.  I look for detail shots to use as transitions or even points in themselves about the story.  I look for a way to end the story visually as well. When I leave I have all the visual content I will need.  I cannot call back and get a photo I missed—I can when I write.  I can call back and ask for clarification when writing.  Sometimes this can even change the story, but with photos I would have to go back and reshoot to fill in any holes in the story and I have done that before. Graph showing how I work using photography to tell a story. No matter which medium you use you must understand your audience really well to contect with them and have the message delivered and understood. I was reading Temple Grandin's book "Thinking in Pictures Expanded Edition: My Life with Autism" where she writes about Uta Frith, a researcher in cognitive development psychology who coined the concept of "theory of mind." It is the ability to attribute mental states to oneself and others and to understand that others have beliefs, desires and intentions that are different from one's own. Frith uses this example to talk about it: For example, Joe, Dick, and a person with autism are sitting at a table.  Joe places a candy bar in a box and shuts the lid.  The telephone rings, and Dick leaves the room to answer the phone.  While Dick is gone, Joe eats the candy bar and puts a pen in the box. The autistic person who is watching is asked, "What does Dick think is in the box?" Many people with autism will give the wrong answer and say "a pen." They are not able to figure out that Dick, who is now outside the room, thinks that the box still has a candy bar. Professional communicators must be able to understand the concept of the "Theory of mind."  They must be able to correctly understand the reactions of the audience.    What I am amazed at is how both writers and photographers don't understand the other mediums.  I am amazed at writers who can communicate in such a way that I am transported into their world. One thing I constantly come up against with many folks when they are word folks and not visual is what photos they think will work with their story.  If they were there they see a snapshot and it brings back their memories--they do not know how the audience will see the photo.  They lack "Theory of Mind" when it comes to visuals.   Many of these writers know how to take pictures and get good exposures, but do not know how visually lacking their photos are.  They have what I call incomplete sentences.  Most of the word folks that are not visual but take photos will take photos of the nouns of their story.  Here is John, here is his home, and here is where he works is what they make photos of for their stories.  They don't see the photos telling the stories and showing the character of John and if he is a warm person and how much he cares for his family and work.  The writer uses words to lead the audience to where they want to go.  It is a very linear approach and very different to the photograph when telling a story. Photographs unlike words play to a different parts of the brain.  How they communicate is based a great deal of the shared experiences of people. Photographers are looking for triggers to help communicate. Over simplifying the process is like looking at just face expressions to communicate moods of a person. Smile can communicate happiness and frown can be sad.  The writer can control their message better because they can be sure the audience doesn't drift off to something in a scene by not including it in the story they write even when the photographer has to contend with them in the photo.

"Gone with the Wind" --75th Anniversary

There are a lot of events in the Atlanta area to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the book Gone with the Wind.

If you're in or around the city, consider these venues:

-- The exhibit Atlanta's Book: The Lost Gone With the Wind Manuscript (June 4-Sept. 5) at the Atlanta History Center features the final four chapters of Mitchell's recently rediscovered manuscript (once thought to have been burned by her husband after her death). The exhibit also features the first-ever public display of Mitchell's writing desk.

-- Margaret Mitchell House tours showcase the Crescent Avenue apartment (which she affectionately called "The Dump") and feature exhibits on Mitchell's pre- and post-GWTW life, along with details on the making of the movie.
Other GWTW-related doings in Georgia:

-- Marietta Gone With The Wind Museum: Scarlett on the Square, June 10-11, will stage a tribute to Mitchell with several cast members from the movie, along with question and answer sessions and a literary panel.

-- On June 11, the Road to Tara Museum in Jonesboro will feature costumed storytellers linking the history of the town with stories from the book.

In 2003 the BBC sent a reporter to the Road to Tara Museum to film for the special on "Gone with the Wind"  It was rated in the top book favorites of all time for the BBC audience.

At first we just posed with the BBC reporter and the Scarlett O'Hara look alike.

We had a little more fun with their expressions.

Today I would shoot it differently than I did in 2003.  I would want to shoot later in the day to have the lights in the house show up.  I would have more dramatic lighting by not lighting everything as evenly as I did here.


I enjoyed shooting this and remembered it when I saw the latest news about events celebrating the book this year.

Joplin Tornado brings back memories

Here you can see my first major tornado that hit my last semester in college at East Carolina University.

I started my career in the 80's and one of the first disasters I saw and covered for my college paper was a F4 tornado.  There were 16 deaths and 153 injuries. The tornado was up to 3/4 of a mile in width. Portions of East Carolina University were severely damaged. 300 homes were leveled, most in Greenville, NC.  My good friend Jesse Riggs lost family members that night.

No matter how many times you see disasters each time I feel a numbness come over me for the loss of life and property.  You are sad for those who are having to rebuild their lives.

On November 10, 2002, a tornado destroyed 50 homes. At least seven people were killed in the Morgan County community of Mossy Grove in eastern Tennessee. I was looking for an overall perspective up the mountain when I shot this photo.

The tornado cut a swath about a mile wide and a mile long.  The hard part when covering these disasters is showing items to give a sense of scale and what is destroyed.  Here I wanted to show the cars overturned for scale and what happened.

What always amazes me is the quickness of the national media on covering these events.

What I realized over the years covering these events is that the national media always took the time even in a disaster to get the best lighting for a shot.  Notice the hair light above the reporter in addition to the main light.  This helped to separate the reporter from the early dawn background.

Just hours before a tornado destroyed this community

The national media all find similar angles to show the destruction to their viewers.  Here you can see three networks all lined up for their early morning news shows.  I chose to shoot this to show how a nation was mourning for the folks.

Roswell Georgia Remembers

Take you camera with you this holiday--you will be glad you did and sorry if you left it at home.  While many of today's events are situations you cannot stop and have to go with the flow, you have to think more to clean up the backgrounds and get the right angle to tell a story.

While these are not going to win the Pulitzer they do keep me shooting and looking.  This exercise of the eyes and brain will lead you to better photos.

Do you see the variations in types of photos below?

First woman guest speaker, Captain Donna C. Rowe, Army Nurse Corps Vietnam 1968-69, hopes her talk helps them invite more women veterans in the future.

Crowd of about 6 - 7,000 listens to Guest Speaker Captain Donna C. Rowe.

Veteran pauses for a portrait after handing out flags to children and adults.

Roswell Faces of War Memorial

Crowd at the celebration

Pledge of Allegiance

Presenting of the colors by Piedmont Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution

Tent Lighting

Lighting cube shot with Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5.  It triggers the studio strobes with it's built in flash.  The pre-flash fires and sets the exposure and then second flash takes the picture.

If you are doing product photography you need to know how to do tent lighting.

You may remember as a child taking some chairs and throwing a sheet over them and getting inside to play. If you used a white sheet you have a pretty good idea what tent lighting does—it diffuses the light.

If you already own a white tent with a white bottom then you can just set this up and you are pretty much good to go.

You can buy a cube tent like I have. I use the Interfit 4 foot cube tent. Here is a link for you Click Here

The basic idea the white material diffuses light passing through it and bounces light off of it inside back on the subject.

You need at least 2 lights to get a really even light and often I use 4. I put two lights on either side then one on top and one on the bottom. I like to literally wrap my subject in light. The best objects to see the results of tent lighting are black. You can see detail all around the object.

By the way, I used a point and shoot Lumix camera and the flash on the camera set off my studio strobes and there you have it—a perfectly lit object.

Simple shot of binoculars which are black and give you example of how evenly the light is around the object using the tent lighting. 

Example of flash built into Panasonic Lumix.

Stop shooting from standing height only to improve your photos

Getting low not only gave a different perspective, but let me tie the people in the foreground to the signage in the background to help give context to what is going on with them.

Most of us all take pictures from standing height. It's convenient more than any other reason.

So few people vary their shooting position relative to subjects, so that when you do your photos have stopping power. There are basically 2 approaches that I recommend trying every time you photograph a subject: 1) bird's eye view and 2) worm's eye view.

I put the camera on the floor for this photo.  This takes some practice to be able to shoot this low and compose.  I have worked on this and can see what I am getting without always looking through the viewfinder.

Get as low as you can and shoot up to the subject. This is called the worm's eye view for obvious reason.

At almost every Chick-fil-A grand opening, the first 100 customers arrive 24 hours and camp out to get Chick-fil-A for a year for free.

Get up above the subject to help give us the overall perspective. This is called the bird's eye view.

To get the birds eye view I rented this crane for me to go up above.  I like using helicopters for this, but the helicopter would have created such a down draft of wind on all those tents it just wasn't worth risking it.

When you get low and high also vary the lens you choose. Shoot a wide, standard and tight shot from each perspective of low and high.

If you do this regularly you will find that as you explore the subject you may discover the unique angle not only has stopping power, but also may give you a decisive moment and perspective that tells the whole story in one photo.

Remember if a subject made you stop and take a 2nd look with your camera it most likely stop other folks as well—if you work at it to find the most interesting perspective.

Photos used by permission of Chick-fil-A

Off Camera Flash – Blog post 3 of 3

You can see the blur in the volleyball even with strobes being used due to the 1/250 sync limitation.

TTL Flash offers some advantages over manual flash. I use the Nikon speedlight system that has helped me have an edge over many other photographers not using the system.

There are three things that make me choose my Nikon Speedlights over the manual flash: 1) I have no sync speed limitations, 2) quick—I don’t have to pause to take readings and then set the camera, and 3) I can shoot at very wide opening f/stops.

You can see the blur of the basketball due to slow shutter speed with the strobes.

Unlimited sync speeds

When you can shoot at any shutter speed then you open the possibilities for so many things.

 
1. You can shoot at high shutter speed like 1/2000 or 1/8000 of second to stop the action.  You see when the shutter is open at 1/250 sec for manual flash there is enough movement is sports to have some motion blur.  You see this is hockey and basketball.
 
2. You can control the background—outside! You can crank that shutter speed up and underexpose the background by say 2 or 3 stops and then up you flash output 2 or 3 stops to properly expose a subject, yet underexpose the background.  Great to get those dark blue skies behind a subject.

The TTL flash easily figured the correct amount of fill flash on the fly here.

Fast

You don’t always have time in some situations to take the time to take flash readings and then set the camera.  News events are a good example where you need to be ready.  Recently I photographed the founder, president and son of the president for an article.  These folks are known to change their mind at the last second and ask you to photograph them just about anywhere—this is when having a TTL portable flash let’s you adjust on the fly.

Taking a flash into the rain forest where coffee is grown in the mountains of Mexico lets me pull it out under all the shade to make the photo look like sunlight.

Wide-open f/stops

Many photographers today are shooting with an f/1.4 lens.  If you go outside to shoot you cannot use a manual flash because shooting at f/1.4 means you will have to shoot at a very high shutter speed.  The TTL high-speed sync lets you shoot with a flash. 

To be able to shoot large groups outside you need those high f/stops that will often require the manual flash.  To be flexible and use high sync shutter speed you need the TTL system.  What I hope you now know is there are advantages to both systems.  Don’t buy both systems right away.  Buy one and learn how to use all the advantages of the system.  Once you find you cannot deliver photography to clients because the system you have is limited—buy the next system and learn all it can do. 

Off Camera Flash – Blog post 2 of 3

(8+ Nikon SB900s) = (1 Alienbees 1600)
(8 x $510 = $4,080) vs ($360)

Comparing my AlienBees 1600 manual flash to my Nikon SB900 TTL flash can be tricky.  It is more like apples and oranges they would say.

One thing you can compare is the guide number.  This translates into what the f/stop would be at say 10 feet.

The guide number for an AlienBees 1600 is 354 with a standard 7" reflector. That means it will provide f/22 at 10 feet, full power at 100 ISO. The 11" reflector will get you f/45 at 10'.  The Nikon SB900 provides a guide number of 132 giving you about an f/13.2 at 10 feet full power.

The Nikon SB900 has a zoom head, which is like having a few different reflectors build in.  The f/stop can go up as you zoom from 14mm to 200mm.

Manual Flash Advantages

• The studio strobes system AlienBees has more available modifiers, ie. Soft boxes, grids, etc.
• Modeling light for studio work, letting you see approximately what you will get before you fire the flash
• Can be used with an inverter, when away from available AC power. While this does cost more you will be able to use it just about anywhere.
• Faster recycle times.
• No overheating issues as compared to the Nikon SB900.  They recommend you stop shooting after 10 shots on SB900 to let it cool.  (I just sent my unit in for overheating)
• It would take 8+ SB900s to equal the output power of 1 AB1600.  With SB900 running about $510 it would cost $4,080 to equal the one AlienBees 1600 priced at $360.

If you need to shoot at f/16 outside the only way to do that is to either buy 8 – SB900s or 1 – AB1600.

TTL Flash Advantage

• Works on "AA" Batteries
• Can shoot above the sync speed of 1/250.  You can take flash photos outside at 1/8000 second if you choose.
• Can shoot at lower f/stops outside life f/2 or even f/1.4
• Light and much more portable than studio strobes
• Small enough to hide behind objects in the scene of a photo, verses the larger studio lights

Stay tuned for more information.

Off Camera Flash – Blog post 1 of 3

Alienbees 1600 Manual Flash

You are ready to take that next step in photography—getting your flash off the camera.  Today there are basically two directions to choose: 1) Manual Flash or 2) TTL Flash.

When I made this jump there was only the one choice of “Manual Flash.”  If I were starting over and having to make that decision it would be very difficult one to make.

Nikon SB900 TTL Flash

 
This first blog post will give you an understanding how each system works.  In the blogs following this I will go into the advantages each system has over the other.

Manual Flash

There are 3 settings on a camera that impact the photo when you push the shutter with flashes.

1. ISO – This is the light sensitivity setting.  The lower the number the more light is needed to make a good exposure and conversely the high the number the less light is needed.  As a general rule the lower the number the less noise in a digital image, so the idea is to always pick the lowest number you can.
2. Shutter Speed – this is what controls how long the shutter stays open.  The longer the more light that will reach the sensor and the shorter time will decrease the amount of light on the sensor.  The longer the shutter stays open the more existing light will be factored into the exposure.
3. Aperture – This is what controls how much light is passing through the lens to the sensor.  This is an algorithm that is expressed as a fraction.  The number you see is actually the bottom number of the fraction.  The larger the number the smaller the opening.  Think of it like getting a piece of a pie.  If you get 1/8 of the pie you have a lot less than the person getting ½ of the pie.

If you had the camera set to take a perfectly exposed and in focus photograph and then added a flash, the flash will most likely over expose the photograph.  You must take into account the flash output to get a well exposed photo.

The easiest way to know what the settings on your camera will be with a flash is to use a flash meter. 

To keep everything simple, we will first use a room that is totally dark.  If you stand where the subject is and fire the flash you can use the meter to tell you what to set your camera.  You need to tell the meter two pieces of information:

1) What is your sync speed?  What is the fastest shutter speed your can take a picture with a manual flash?  This will be in your owner’s manual.  Many cameras use 1/125 or 1/250 sync speed. 

2) You need to tell the meter what ISO you will be using.

Flash Meter

Once those settings are put into the flash meter you just need to put the incident dome facing the flash and where the subject will be sitting or standing for a portrait.  You can plug the sync cable into the meter to trigger the flash or a different mode letting you just first the flash and it will sense the flash.

After you fire the flash the meter will tell you what f/stop or aperture to set the camera.

TTL Flash

To figure all the above you just put the camera flash on TTL mode and take the picture.  You will pick the aperture on the camera and the camera will tell you if the photo is under or over exposed.  For all the same reasons your camera may over or underexpose photos without a flash will be pretty much the same reason it does it with a flash.

Check back for more posts on flashes.