Lake panorama, with cyclists

Grabbed a couple cameras, a couple lenses (Pentax 40 f/2.4 and Sigma 105 f/2.8) and headed over to the lake to do some experimental photography. I wanted to get a photo of the lake at rest with runners and cyclists appearing to move past the camera lens in a blur, suggesting the passage of time to which the lake is relatively indifferent. OK, perhaps that's jumping to meaning before I've got a form. What I wanted to do was photograph the lake, with some ghosts in it.

By ghosts, I just mean deliberately blurred people. The blur is produced by having a person move through the scene while the camera's shutter stays open longer than usual. For a while I've been intrigued by the "ghosts" in some of the great Eugene Atget's photos of Paris. Atget was forced to use very long shutters in the range of a couple seconds. Although he seems to have shot very early in the morning when there were few people about, occasionally, his photos have a blur in them where a person wandered on the to the scene during the exposure. I'm not sure if Atget liked it or not, but many people since have found it quite an evocative effect; I certainly do. But I wasn't trying to imitate Atget precisely here. If I'd kept my shutter open for 2 whole seconds, my ghosts would have been barely imperceptible. Since my ghosts were going to be riding bikes or jogging, I had to speed the shutter up a little to catch them. Most of these were shot around 1/20th sec. (Other technical info: Apertures in all these shots between f/8 and f/9.5. ISO between 160 and 400.)

Catching ghosts was harder than I thought and I wasn't very successful.

This first shot shows one problem. This father and son, who had parked near where my tripod was standing, had just one moment earlier gotten on their bikes to the left of the tree and begun cycling to the right. I turned the camera at the last second and didn't have time to think hard. As it happens, although I had my shutter set pretty slow—1/20th sec—they were moving so slowly that they didn't blur very much. Still, there is an element of interest in this photo, I think: the beautiful sharp and well-defined tree trunk. I also like the fact that, shooting at an angle like this, the level horizontal line of the far shore is not parallel to the line of the near shore, as it is in all the following shots. This would have been my best shot of the day, if I'd use a slower shutter. Sigh.

In the following photo, I captured several passers-by at once:

I like this photo for that reason, and yet, it doesn't quite click. I am not sure why. Perhaps there are too many ghosts. I also tried a different treatment on this photo. I didn't convert it all the way to black and white; I simply desaturated it about 80%. Notice that you can still see some of the green in the grass on the near bank and red in the building across the lake. The idea here was that, at sundown, things naturally get less saturated. That is true. But I'm not sure the treatment works. Perhaps the treatment doesn't work because the composition isn't perfect. As I said, I'm not sure.


In the next shot, I think the cyclist's posture is almost perfect:

The way he is learning forward emphasizes the impression of movement, which I wanted. I got lucky there. Note that I've cropped that photo to its original aspect ratio (2x3), while most of the others here have been cropped to 1x2, an aspect ratio that emphasizes the horizontal axis of the scene by cutting out a lot of relatively meaningless sky. Sometimes it seems to me that this photo is weakened by the fact that there is simply too much lake in the middle; at other times, I think perhaps the lake (occupying about two-fifths of the vertical space) is balanced by the sky (occupying also about two-fifths of the vertical space) and that this shot is not too bad.

On the effect of cropping, compare this image:

Here I've cropped to 1x2, and the ghost cyclist also has worked out pretty well, indeed, except for his posture, perhaps even better than in the previous photo. I think cutting out some of the sky emphasizes the emptiness of the lake in the middle.

It took me a while to realize that this was a problem. Finally, I lowered my tripod very considerably, so the camera was less than 2 ft off the ground. Because the lake is lower than the grass from which I was shooting, lowering the tripod doesn't change my perspective on the lake much; as you can see in the photo, there's about as much lake as there was before. But it makes the cyclist's head move up on the horizon.

This, I think, is the most successful photo of the group, or rather, the one that is least unsuccessful. I wish the cyclist had been moving a little faster. But this time, I got the top of his head almost to touch the far shore— thus "filling in" the lake. And the fact that this cyclist wasn't at all colorful prompted me to give this a full black and white treatment, which I rather like.

But then again, perhaps the problem with these shots has nothing to do with the cyclists or the amount of empty lake. Maybe the problem was simply that the sunset—which was taking place directly across the lake in all of these photos—was hidden behind a rather boring cloud formation. I just wasn't lucky that day. It always helps to be lucky.

Portraiture at the Dallas Arboretum

I'll be back at the Dallas Arboretum on Mothers Day weekend in May (May 8-9, 2010) to take portraits for Arboretum guests as part of the annual May Flowers event. It's a fun assignment, and really lets me flex my portraiture muscles, since I typically end up shooting 40-50 portraits in two days. Not sure what fee the Arboretum will set this year but it's been $15 in the past, which is a fraction of my normal fee for a personal portrait session at the Arboretum. And you get a 4"x6" print mailed to you as part of the deal. Can't beat it with a stick, as they say.

It's a lot of fun for me—but it's hard work, too, and a real photographic challenge. Where's the challenge? Well, for starters, the Arboretum asks me to be there when most of their guests are there, which means afternoon. When I shoot personal portraits at the Arboretum, I'm usually out there when they open at 9am and always wish I could get out there earlier. The afternoon light can be harsh. Depending on where they place me, I may have mottled shade and light filtering through tree branches overhead. And depending on where they place me, the light may be coming from the wrong direction. And of course, it changes constantly throughout the afternoon, so I have to stay on top of my exposures.

Still, it's possible to get some really nice photos. Here's one from a couple of years ago that I pulled out almost by random:

During these quick sessions, I try to be less formal. This is easier to do with children than with adults, who invariably want to pose for me.

Another problem that I solve shot by shot is, how close should I get? Or rather, how much of the background should I include in the photo? There is usually some sort of fantastic house built of flowers serving as a background for my sitting area. You might think that I'd want to include it, as I did in the shot above. But as I've done more and more photos there, it seems to me enough to have just a hint of the background, and to focus in on people's faces.

This isn't how I shot this beautiful mother and daughter originally. The original shot includes a lot of background, as in the shot of the little girls above. But I like this crop. This year, I think I'll be shooting tight like this to start with. And call me perverse, but I like even better this treatment of the same photo:

Yes, mother and daughter have beautiful red hair. But, well, it's possible to have too much color. All that color in the clothing, in the flowers in the background, it confuses the issue. The black and white (well, duo-toned) treatment, by muting the colors, removes anything distracting from their faces and the play of light in the photo.

Installing a LumiQuest Softbox III

The installation info that came with my LumiQuest Softbox III was a bit terse and I am not the most intuitive guy when it comes to putting things together. So I found myself less than 100% sure that I understood how to complete the installation. And I knew I didn't want to make a mistake, since I was going to be applying sticky—and permanent—strips of velcro to something or other.

Fortunately, LumiQuest customer support (in the person of a very helpful lady named Roberta) responded quickly to my email. Actually, Roberta called me back by phone. With her help, I was able to figure out what I needed to do. After getting off the phone, I decided I would take a few photos as I put the Softbox III together and post them here, for the benefit of all mankind.

Velcro, yes, adhesive, maybe?

The Softbox III has four tabs with velcro on the "inside" that fasten to velcro on the outside of your flash unit. LumiQuest provides you with the necessary velcro strips to glue to your flash unit. Or you can buy a non-adhesive cinch strap that apparently does the job just as well.

Should you buy a cinch strap? It's a separate purchase and costs about $5-$10. On the other hand, with the cinch strap, you won't have to glue velcro strips permanently to the head of your flash unit. Aside from the cost, the cinch strap is probably a good idea. I have a pair of 'em on order, but I decided to go ahead and glue the velcro hooks that came with my Softbox III to one of my old Pentax AF-540FGZ flash units.

I'll use the cinch strap when I want to attach the Softbox III to my newer and more expensive Metz 58AF.

The inside connection: attaching the hooks to your flash

If you have a non-adhesive cinch strap, you can skip this section.

Inside the SoftBox III package, I found two items: the softbox itself, and a 6" strip of velcro that had some other, shorter pieces of velcro attached to it. I set the latter aside, as it isn't needed until later.

Here's a picture of the Softbox III opened up, with my 540FGZ flash unit sitting on it for display. Note that I have already removed a piece of velcro from the inside upper tab of the Softbox III and glued it to the back side of my flash. That was step 1.

Next, I removed the velcro strip from the bottom tab of the Softbox and glued it to the front of my flash unit:

If you look closely, you may notice that the Pentax AF-540FGZ has a couple of small screws near the business end on this side of the flash, so I had to place the velcro just slightly lower on this side than I did on the other. If I had noticed the screws earlier, perhaps I would have placed the velcro "hooks" the same distance from the end on both sides, but I don't think it makes a big difference.

Finally, I removed the smaller hook strips from the left and right side tabs of the Softbox III, and glued them to the sides of the flash unit. Notice that the velcro has a "grain," that is, the velcro appears to have rows. I didn't worry about this on the longer sides, because it was obvious how the strips should be placed, but with these short sides, I placed the velcro so that the rows aligned along the flash's long axis:

Attaching the Softbox III to the flash

Once the velcro hooks have been glued to your flash—or, if you have a cinch strap, then after you've attached and tightened the cinch strap—you can attach the Softbox III. Take the top tab, and place its white inner velcro patch to the velcro on the upper side of your flash. Then attach the other tabs of the Softbox III to the other sides of the flash. When I was done, this is what it looked like:

In the picture above, you will also see the 6" velcro strip with the three smaller pieces of velcro attached to it. That's what we'll use next.

Securing the Softbox III from the outside

Roberta from LumiQuest explained that, while the process described above fastens the Softbox III to your flash pretty effectively, some photographers, perhaps holding the Softbox III in their hands and moving it around a bit, reported that the velcro connections tended to become a bit loose over time. So LumiQuest now throws in what I would describe as a "belt" that you can use to keep the connection tighter. LumiQuest calls this 6" extra piece of velcro the "loop".

In the picture below, I've got the Softbox III attached to my flash, and the flash is mounted on a Pentax K20D camera. Below the "LumiQuest Softbox III" logo on the softbox, you can see (well, can see if you enlarge the photo) the words "Made in USA" on the outside top tab.

I removed the longest of the three small velcro strips that were originally attached to the loop. This is a roughly 2 1/2" strip of velcro with adhesive, similar to those we glued earlier on the sides of the flash. But this piece gets glued to the outside of the Softbox III's tab. Here's the placement:

And after sticking that piece on the top, wide tab, I removed the two smaller strips from the 6" loop and glued them to the outside of the right and left tabs. Then I took the 6" loop,centered it carefully above the wide velcro hook, pressed it in place, and then pulled the sides around and fastened them snugly, too. Here's the finished installation:

Notice that the "Made in USA" declaration is now hidden.

This outer belt or loop clearly provides additional security for the connection. Roberta at LumiQuest recommended that I leave everything in place for 24 hours before trying to tear it all apart, that is, before pulling the Softbox III off the flash unit. I presume this is so that the glue attaching the velcro hooks to the flash can set. Of course, I'm not going to be able to remove those velcro hooks.

First shot

Of course, I could not help myself at this point. I had to take a quick picture. Here's a shot of the Pentax K10D that I used to take all of the pictures above. This picture was taken with the K20D, but I decided to remove the flash unit and hold it in my hand, a little off to the side. The Softbox III is about 12" from the camera in the photo.

It ain't gonna win me any prizes, but I'm pleased with this first test. Direct flash from this distance would have produced a very high key, high contrast photo. And using the Softbox III is a lot easier than the alternatives, such as using an umbrella, or trying to bounce. I'm looking forward to using the Softbox III in some upcoming portrait sittings.

Meaning in the background

Here is a great photo. I can't link to it directly. It's currently the sixth photo on the Wall Street Journal's Photos of the Week page for February 15-19, 2010.

Please click on the thumbnail above to view the photo full size on the WSJ page, then come back. Photo credit: Thierry Roge/Reuters. Remember, you have to scroll down to the sixth photo.

What's special about this photo?

If you simply glanced at the photo, what you saw is a fairly pretty picture of a man carrying a young girl across train tracks in some snow. If you took a second glance at the picture, you may also have noticed emergency personnel in the middle ground, carrying a stretcher. It's not clear if the person on the stretcher is sick, or wounded or dead.

But if you kept looking at the photo for just one more second, you finally found the "punch line", almost but not quite hidden in the background. Look closely and you can just make out the train cars that are lifted unnaturally off the track. And then you realize that the photo shows the aftermath of a terrible train crash.

Photographer Thierry Roge focuses on the man in the foreground with a fairly wide aperture, but without opening the aperture up all the way. The fairly wide aperture leaves the men in the middle ground a little out of focus, and leaves the train cars behind them a little more out of focus. The snow helps, too, by softening the edges of people and things, especially behind the man and girl in front.

Of course, good photographers do this all the time—deliberately blurring the background. But often we blur the background because the stuff in the background is not terribly important, or because we're trying to throw the viewer's attention entirely on the foreground. I try to shoot brides in dressing rooms as wide open as possible for the absolute minimum depth of field, because most of the dressing rooms I've taken photos in were fairly cluttered and uninteresting.

But in Thierry's train-wreck photo, the blurred or not-quite-in focus background is terribly important. He's not hiding it. He just doesn't want you to notice it first. He wants you first to see the man and the little girl. The story of the photo is the human drama. The wrecked trains in the background are only the explanation or back story.

The Napalm Girl

Actually, this technique is one that great news photographers are fond of. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of examples. One of the most famous is the great, Pulitzer-Prize winning Vietnam War photo by AP Photographer Nick Ut, commonly known as the "Napalm Girl photo." The photo shows a naked little girl (Kim Phuc) running down a street. At first, you only notice the naked girl, and you notice that she's crying. Then you notice the American soldiers, perhaps on the right side of the photo (if it's cropped wide), certainly behind the girl and following her down the road toward the camera. And further behind them all, you see a vague, billowing, terrible cloud of smoke. The smoke—and the fire that must be with it—appears to be a "safe" distance in the background, but the condition of the girl connects her suffering with the fire, which, as we all know, was caused by napalm. Note that your eye is drawn deeper into the photo by the road, just as the Thierry photo of the train crash draws your eye deeper as you follow the train tracks back.

Pictures and stories

One of the reasons that I call photos like these truly "great" is that they are so self-sufficient. They don't need captions. You need a caption, perhaps, to know that the train wreck occurred in Brussels, Belgium. But that's a relatively unimportant detail. Compare Thierry's photo to the other train photo further down on the same page (taken in South Africa), or to the photo of the burning building (in Austin, Texas). You won't be able to guess the story from the photo without reading the caption. That's not a knock against those photos. The photo of the man standing on the front "bumper" of the South African train is a particularly arresting image and a fine photo. But the truth is, most pictures do not tell a story; pictures are very seldom worth a thousand words. So when you get one that does tell a story so completely, it's a sure sign of greatness.

Here's looking at you, kid

While I am a heckuva good-looking guy, and of course a brilliant photographer, I am, well, let's just say I'm not George Clooney. I remind myself of this when I try to take my own photo, as I do once a year or so. My latest self-portrait effort was motivated by my desire to get a new photo for my Google Buzz profile. Here's what I came up with.

Not too bad, sez me. That's the dimpled hunk I look at in the mirror at least twice a day, when I brush my teeth and (optionally) shave and/or comb my hair. Unfortunately, that isn't me. That's me in a mirror. This is me:

And this chump isn't nearly as good looking. He looks, I dunno, backwards or something. I feel in the first photo like my hair is nicely composed, while in the second photo, it's a bit wispy and mussed. Of course, the second photo = the first photo, except that the image has been flipped horizontally and sharpened.

Perhaps if I took more photos of myself—or had more photos of me taken, preferably by someone with great tact as well as photographic skill—I'd get used to my own mug. But perhaps not. One thing I do know is that it's harder to use on yourself the little tricks we photographers use on our subjects to try to make them look their best. When you have to face the mirror with a camera, well, the camera doesn't lie.

The photographer excludes

Brief but excellent essay over at Luminous Landscape: "The Photographer Excludes," by Peter Cox.

There's a saying: "The painter includes; the photographer excludes". A painter will include only those elements in a composition which they expressly want. A photographer, on the other hand, must work out how to exclude distracting elements. This is a large part of the challenge in making great images.

I liked Cox's example of how he took a photo that he initially thought was no good and, by cropping it further, turned it into one of his favorites. I learned the importance of cropping decades ago when I was editing my college yearbook. Time after time I turned a bad photo into one that was merely mediocre by cropping tightly. I was less often able by cropping to turn a mediocre photo into a good one.

I wrote about cropping last year ("Crop rotation"). When I shoot a wedding or other event, I tend these days to include a bit more of the scene than I think necessary. I do this for a simple practical - one might even say commercial - reason: I want to make it possible for my clients to crop the photo to whatever print size they prefer.

But I have to confess that I feel guilty about this. We don't have an infinite number of print sizes available to us or anything like, but we do have a variety of sizes and aspect ratios. And it makes sense, at least in terms of artistic principle, that a photo that, say, ought to be presented at a 1:2 aspect ratio, should be so presented and that I should be insistent about it. This photo from my daughter's dance studio, for example, is only interesting at 1:2. At the camera's original 2:3 aspect ratio, the effect of the photo - the chopping and distortion created by the long and wide mirror - is almost completely lost. To print (or display) this at any other aspect ratio would be a mistake.

I wish I had the nerve to tell my brides that a 2:3 photo may be printed at 4"x6" or even 8"x12" (which is one of my pro lab's options) but that it definitely should not be cropped to fit a 5"x7" or 8"x10" frame. If the frame is indeed the essence of the photo - and I believe it is - then monkeying around with the frame ought to be regarded as a no-no, as doing damage to the photo.

Ah, but I make more from an 8"x10" print than I do from a 4"x6". And if the bride's mother wants an 8"x10", I'll do what I can to accommodate.

What's coming here in Big D

Couple of things for photography lovers to look forward to here in Dallas.

If you're on the email list for AfterImage Gallery in the Dallas Quadrangle (proprietor Ben Breard), you know already that they're pulling some great pieces out of their amazing inventory. I'm planning a trip down there very soon.

And the Dallas Museum, which I don't usually think of as a major venue for photography, is sponsoring this spring an exciting exhibition titled "The Lens of Impressionism: Photography and Painting Along the Normandy Coast, 1850–1874". Yeah, it's an awkward title but that's the case with a lot of exhibitions. Anyway, for more info, check out the exhibit page on the Dallas Museum web site, here. Exhibit will run February 21 through May 23, 2010.