Category Archives: How To

Animals, How To

The Direction One Shoots is Important!

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Here’s a quick little post as a reminder to keep in mind where the sun is and how it changes everything.

We were in Panama a couple of years ago, hanging out on a beach, when an unusual noise was heard. I looked up and saw some guys racing their horses up and down the beach. So what does any half-decent, self-respecting photographer do?!? That’s RIGHT! I grabbed my camera!

I photographed them racing up and down the beach for a few minutes in the late afternoon. But, it wasn’t until I got home that I realized what I had. It literally looks like I was on two different shoots! Check it out.

As the horses and riders reached the end of their sprint they stopped. I shot into the sun which gave me great backlight, silhouettes, and the mist of the ocean. The color of the whole image is a wonderful, warm, afternoon glow.

The colors came out as a natural sepia tone.

Once the horses and riders passed me, though, in the opposite direction the images change completely.

The afternoon light is still way better than mid-day. But…It doesn’t look like the same shoot.

The sillouhettes are gone, the colors are full and rich as well as the details of the subjects.

This is just something I stumbled across while self quarantining which has allowed me to some archive diving. It’s like cleaning out a long-forgotten closet, lol. There is a lot of “junk” but also some real treasures I had forgotten about!

So, go out, keeping in mind healthy social distancng standards, and play with the light.

Happy shooting!

Adventure, Gear, How To, Outdoors, People, Photography, Places to Shoot, Travel

The Colorado River through Grand Canyon, Timelapse

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May 30th was my last day at Killip Elementary school in Flagstaff. I am now retired following an amazing and rewarding 27-year career in public education. The next day (the actual last day of school) I launched on an eight-day, one boat motor trip through Grand Canyon on the Colorado River.

It was a magical trip with 13 close friends and family. We were guided down the river by three amazing humans, a boatwoman, swamper and assistant. Their stories will come later.

In thinking through how to blog about such a wonderful experience I became overwhelmed with the thought of not giving it the attention it needs. By writing a one week blog and calling it good. I can’t do that. I came home with over 4800 images, memories to last a lifetime and stories that could be turned into a book. I don’t write books, I write short little weekly blogs.

SO! To help me process through the images and the experience I will be posting for the next several weeks, or until I run out of images and stories to share. As I process the images and become inspired by them all over again I will post, so hang on for the ride as you join me on my river trip and let ME be your guide this time.

I’ve never posted videos here before but I took a lot on this trip. 110 to be exact. This first batch is some fun time-lapse images I captured of everyday chores at camp.

Here is the bag line. It used to be called the fire line when I started river running in the mid 80’s but now it’s a bag line. It is a super efficient way to move our piles of stuff. Yes, even here in Grand Canyon we spend time managing stuff. There are 28 blue bags, one is a sleep kit complete with sleeping bag, tarp and sheet. The other is our “need it only at camp” bag. On an airplane, you would check it into the belly of the plane.

We all slept on these pads. They are quite comfy, especially with sand as the base. No one used a tent…ever. The boat crew slept on the boat.

Ahhh, the cots. The eleven folks that slept on these swore by them. Ellen, Craig and I did not. But they did create opportunity for more bag lines.

Apparently, I can’t arrange the videos in any order I want. Bummer. I would have this one last because it is the last thing we do…get on the boat. Each morning at loading time we chose our locations. Sometimes we mixed it up, sometimes not. The front of the boat got the wettest, even in little riffles. The boatwoman, Amity, steered from the rear of the vessel while Will and Tierany (the rest of the crew)  traveled around the raft checking on the passengers. The area closest to the motor well was deemed the Chicken Coup. Folks there stayed pretty dry except in the large rapids. Then they got sprinkled. 😉

We went with Arizona River Adventures out of Flagstaff. They provided us with many things, one of which was a chair. 14 of these things fit in that green dry bag. It wasn’t busy but the Johnson brothers, Craig and Scott, became the chair packing experts. They figured out exactly how to prepare the chairs and insert them into the bag successfully. Thank you, Craig and Scott!

Here’s another bag line set at every four seconds. It goes fast, maybe too fast, but also includes putting on sunscreen.

Timelapse is a lot of fun. It can be very gear oriented and time-consuming to do professional quality imagery or, like me, you can use the settings on your camera and either hand hold or use a tripod. I believe these were all handheld but then again I wasn’t holding them for 30 minutes, only a few.

I took just two cameras with me, a Canon S120 with a waterproof housing and my Lumix Gx8 with a 14-150 mm lens in a small drybag so I could access it and shoot on the boat. Both shoot timelapse, the Canon shoots it in miniature effect.

Pull out your manual and look up timelapse on your camera. If you have a choice start with a frame every two seconds and set it to stop after 300 frames. My camera then makes a video with the stills but keeps the stills separately. I will erase them later. It’s fun to shoot things that take a long time. Start with making dinner or the bed or washing dishes or something. It’s a lot of fun.

Happy shooting!

 

How To

Macro vs. Close-Up Photography

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Something became clear to me recently. I realized the difference between macro and close-up photography and concluded that I’m really more of a close-up photographer than a macro person.

 

Here’s the main difference as I understand it: With macro, you need a tripod, a non-moving subject, a lot of patience and you get in SO close to a subject that many times you need a caption to tell you what it is. With close-up, you can shoot it with most lenses, you get very close to your subject with a zoom or by walking closer but can still tell what it is without question and you can do it successfully with a moving subject.

The two images above, shot in Costa Rica in 2012, were taken with the 100 mm Canon macro lens. At the time I was SURE I was shooting macro. I even set the lens for it. Turns out these are really just close-ups. If it were a true macro image a single water drop would nearly fill the frame as would only a few of these frog eggs. (I think they are frog eggs).

I decided to dive into my archive and pull up all images shot with my two macro lenses. The first one was a Canon 100mm, f/2.8. I loved that lens and it worked well for me but in pulling up the images I began to realize I mostly shot close-ups in macro mode or not in macro mode at all but at 100mm. My other lens is the Olympus 60mm, f/2.8 that I got when I switched to the mirrorless micro four-thirds format camera a couple of years ago. Same thing. Most of my images are either close-ups in macro mode or just shooting at 60mm.

I pulled up over 8700 images shot with those two lenses and precious few could be considered truly macro. My minimalist, photograph as you go shooting style does not lend itself to true macro photography. I like to travel light with as little gear as possible.

At the very LEAST a good macro image requires a tripod and a subject that is very still. A macro lens will reduce the depth of field (the space in your image that is in focus) to the width of a credit card. This means that you must be very precise as to what you are focussing on. The slightest breeze or movement will put a flower or insect out of focus.

If you are truly interested in exploring the world of macro photography I have a resource for you. My good friend, Amy Horn, recently wrote a book with Bruce Taubert, a retired wildlife biologist, on this very subject. You can check out their book and order it here: The Art of Macro Photography

The head of this praying mantis is one of the few images I have that could truly be considered macro. It is handheld and my subject was standing very still.

 

I’m not sure where the line actually is between close-up and macro. This image shows how small the depth of field (the area in focus) is. His eye is about the only thing that is sharp. Always focus on the eyes.
Right? Close-up or Macro? All I know is I should have used a tripod.
I would for sure consider this one just a close-up. And it didn’t jump on me so I was happy about that. Not sure how much closer I would have been willing to get…
This little red frog was pretty tiny sitting on someone’s finger but I would still classify it as a close-up.
I really liked this image to show the shallow depth of field when your lens is in macro mode. This is rusted barbed wire wrapped around more wire. If you look close one strand is in focus while the one right next to it, and a little back, is not. I can not stress enough how crazy shallow the area in focus is with macro shooting. To the point where there is now software that allows you to focus stack. You take many images and continually adjust the focus only to “stack” them later to create an image where the whole subject is in focus. Check it out, it’s in Amy and Bruce’s book. Pretty fascinating.

Well, that’s all I have for macro. In writing this I’ve learned that macro is not my area of focus, so to speak, in photography. It is a fascinating avenue to explore, however, if you are interested.

Happy Shooting!!

 

 

How To, Outdoors

Moving Water

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Water…I love it. Moving water in particular. I can watch it for hours. Waves exploding against rocks or crashing on shore, it mesmerizes me like a camp fire. It can be a violent adrenaline rush or a soothing, calm flow.

Capturing it to convey these emotions takes some planning and knowledge of the exposure triangle: ISO, shutter speed and aperture (or f/stop). Oh, and a tripod.

These two images were taken on the Colorado River. Both were shot at a high shutter speed (1,000/sec) to capture and freeze the violence and drama of the rafts crashing through the waves. Because I used a high shutter speed and because it was mid-day I could shoot the subjects hand holding the camera.

That is not the case, however,  if you want to shoot a water fall or stream at a slow shutter speed to create that silky look of the moving water. Tools of the trade are a camera, lens, tripod, self-timer and probably a neutral density filter. I have a circular variable filter that restricts light up to ten stops. That’s pretty dark but at least it gives me the option if it’s bright out.

Now that you have your gear locate some moving water to practice. It could be a local fountain, waterfall or sprinklers for that matter.

I set up my tripod, screwed on my ND filter and aimed at the water. It’s best to choose a spot that disrupts the calm flow of water, either a riffle or rapid words well. I set my ISO at 100, f/16, and self-timer at two seconds. I adjust the shutter speed according to what I’m looking for. In this case the top image is at 1/200 and the bottom one is at 1/6. I find the bottom one to be much more interesting. But please realize I didn’t need to stop there. In experimenting remember that pixels are free! Shoot new frames, each with a second or five added on and see what you get. This experimentation will give you an idea of where you might start when traveling and you come upon some amazing water.

The next four were shot in Picture Canyon in Flagstaff. The top one is 1/5 of a second and the second one is 3.2 seconds. Take into consideration the features of the water. In this case the slower speed draws the turbulent white water out into nice, silky lines.

The top one was shot at 1/3 of a second and then I noticed the bubbles. I slowed the shutter speed down even more to 3.2 seconds and really like the lines created by the traveling bubbles.  

Look what happens here, a waterfall on the coast of Vancouver Island. Both images have the nice, silky look in the waterfall. The difference comes when I go from 1/4 of a second to a full 15 second exposure. See how the rotating bubbles at the bottom of the image create a nice swirl?

One last example shows the difference between a 1/50 shutter speed and 2.5 seconds. The top one is a little less silky and the bubbles stop where they are made. Below the falling water is a little silkier and the bubbles create lines as they travel away from the point of impact which for me makes for a nicer image.

So there you have it. Don’t be afraid to take your camera and tripod out to some moving water and experiment. Try several second difference shots and see what you get. I think you’ll be please with the outcome.

Happy shooting!

Adventure, How To, Outdoors, Places to Shoot, Travel

RAW vs. JPG, enhancing color

I spent last spring break in Panama with my beautiful wife Ellen. I have nearly two thousand images to sort through and I hope you are as excited to see them as I am to share them.

I’m going to begin this blog with where we left off in Panama, on the San Blas Islands of the Guna Yala, an indigenous tribe in Panama’s Caribbean Sea.

When I first downloaded the images I was extremely disappointed that I wasn’t able to capture the true color of the blue green water surrounding the islands.  And then I figured it out. In Lightroom, in the Develop module, right below Basic, is a tab marked HSL / Color / B&W.  I clicked on that, scrolled down to Saturation, clicked on the little cross to the left, took it over a color I wanted to enhance and wah-lah! saturated colors! MUCH more like the colors we experienced on the islands, even with cloudy skies.

This is the image after I worked on it.

Here is another before/after example with the beach, palm trees, water and sky.

The following images all were enhanced using the same tool. You also have a choice of enhancing the Hue and Luminance, all of which can give you results closer to what you actually saw.

I know I spent the few days we had on these islands pinching myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.

The colors were so amazing and vibrant. I was so glad and relieved to discover I could convey those colors in my images.

In order to do this, though, you have to shoot in RAW, not JPG. As one of my favorite photographers puts it, imagine you have a bucket of pixels and information (that’s RAW) as opposed to a cup.  That’s JPG. RAW gives you much more latitude when it comes to post processing your images. It will also use up more of your memory card so be sure to use big enough ones that you won’t run out on a shoot.

There are other post processing softwares out there, I happen to use Lightroom for organizing and post processing.

Don’t be scared, switch that camera to RAW and give yourself more creative options when post processing your fabulous images.

Happy Shooting!!

 

 

 

 

Adventure, Animals, Flowers, Gear, How To, Nature, Outdoors, Places to Shoot, Travel

Havasupai, The hike in

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I had the good fortune of being invited on a camping permit last month for Havasu Canyon. It was amazing. But let me clear something up first that seems to cause confusion with folks. Havasu is the name of the canyon, creek and falls. Havasupai is the name of the tribe of people that live there and Supai is the name of the village where they live.

Shadows are always fun. Here is an image of three of our party walking down the wash  bed shortly after finishing the initial mile and a half switchback descent. We walked on terrain like this for eight and a half more miles until we reached the campground.

There were still some flowers in bloom as we walked down.

This was a great alcove. On a much smaller scale it reminded me of Red Wall Cavern on the Colorado River.

Apparently stacking and placing rocks and pebbles in erosion holes is a thing on this hike. We ran into them frequently. At first we thought they were naturally placed there via flash flooding but this little rock cairn gave it away.

We’re getting closer!!

As we enter the outskirts of the village we run into another sign offering breakfast. Supai is kept safe by the two rock sentinels seen here in the background.

Cottonwood trees abound down here.  They provide much needed shade for the hot summer months. To the left is their helicopter landing field.

Cottonwood tree knots are amazing. Such character!

We passed this church, complete with the dog sleeping out front, on our way through the village to the campground.

This is the sketchy bridge we had to cross to get to our campsite. Luckily no one fell in. If they had, though, the water is a pleasant 69 degrees year round.

Evenings were chilly but the days warmed up nicely and allowed us to wear shorts, sandals and sleeveless tops. In October we only had about 3-3.5 hours of sunlight in camp. Brrr. No wonder there weren’t as many people in camp as compared to when we’ve been there in April.

Stay tuned. Next week I will be sharing the canyon including the creek and waterfalls!

Celebrations, Fall, Family, How To, Outdoors, People, Places to Shoot, Travel

Pumpkin Patch Season!

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October is upon us and with it the beautiful colors and celebrations of fall. This blog’s intent is to inspire you during this season to get out their and capture your family and friends enjoying the festivities surrounding the pumpkin patch. There’s lots to shoot so let’s get started!

This particular pumpkin patch in Marin County, where my family lives, provides customers with wheel barrows to haul their good in. I The colors of these one-wheeled hand carts wasn’t doing it for me so I decided to make it black and white. I do this with images whose colors I am struggling with in one way or another.

They also provided junior wheel barrows for the littles. My nephew, Lucas,  LOVED his cart and wheeled it everywhere.

He was so excited to be able to put his choice of pumpkin in it. I shot this image from eye level to be sure to capture the background of the hay bails and other pumpkins. Had I gotten down to his level we would be looking at the street. Keep an eye on that background and don’t be afraid to change angles to simplify it or change it all together.

We plopped my niece Ella down next a squash much bigger than her. The danger here was making sure the wheelbarrow didn’t topple over while I fired off a few snaps.

Farm equipment is super fun to shoot. Once Lucas spotted the tractor the wheelbarrow got left behind.

These two little girls were having fun trying to find each other in the hay maze. It was awesome watching from above as they yelled out directions to each other.

This was a lucky catch. Lucas caught on to the game of me trying to shoot him and spent his time running in the opposite direction of where ever I was. I had to be quick.

Ella lost interest pretty quickly in sitting on top of the hay bale maze so she dove for Mama. I, personally, like the less than perfect portraits . I prefer candids.

Seriously, look at that face. I’m getting the stink-eye!

The best part is just getting out your long lens, standing back and capturing the natural explorations that happen in such a great area. Again I angled is just so. You can see in the upper right hand corner the beginnings of the highway just beyond the fence.

And don’t forget the animals!

So, wether you’re into photographing people or things, I encourage you to head out with your camera to a local pumpkin patch and see what they have to shoot. I’m guessing you’ll find plenty!

Happy Shooting!!

Cultural, How To, Places to Shoot, Summer, Travel

Inner Harbor, Victoria, B.C.

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In June I was a trip leader on an Arizona Highways Photo Workshop that began in the beautiful city of Victoria, the capital of the Canadian Province of British Columbia. Poised on the southern tip of Vancouver Island and with a population of 85,792 residents, it is a city one can easily spend a week in and not run out of things to do and see. We officially began our workshop at 2 pm on a Sunday. Between that time and our departure for Port Renfrew on Tuesday morning we hit a lot of wonderful places and barely scratched the surface of beautiful places to shoot. This posting will highlight what caught my eye in Victoria’s famed Inner Harbor and Fisherman’s Wharf.

Being the capital of the province of British Columbia Victoria is blessed with housing this beautiful structure, the parliament building, which watches over the Inner Harbor. If you want to shoot it without hundreds of people in the frame I suggest you get up early. This image was taken at 6:30 in the morning. It faces east so the light is perfect, no annoying shadows

We passed this ole guy and his dog each morning on the way from our hotel to the Inner Harbor.

On our way to the harbor we walked past this totem just outside a store. Totems are everywhere and they are quite beautiful.

Here is a replica of a traditional longhouse and totem outside oneof Victoria’s many museums, just down the street from the parliament building.

On the weekends you can take a carriage ride around the harbor area. These guys were lined up ready for any takers.

I believe Victoria is known for their gardens and if they aren’t, they should be. Flowers were everywhere. I found this lovely rose (and hundreds more) on the grounds of The Empress Hotel, overlooking the harbor. It rained the first three days on us but it made for lovely shots with the diffused lighting and raindrops on the petals.

I found this lone guitar case as I was walking around by the boats. I’m assuming the owner was on a nearby bench. The harbor was full of people when I took this shot. I had to wait a few moments for just the right time to have this appear to be all by itself. When you shoot, be sure to notice distracting things in your frame. If you don’t want them there either move yourself or be patient and wait for the frame to clear on its own.

 

This is another example of having to be patient. The flags atop the yellow water taxis caught my eye but i wanted the flags to be open at the same time. I set my camera on multi-frame shooting, waited for the wind to blow and fired the shutter. After several attempts I managed to get this image. I was happy with it so I moved on.

Nope, I don’t know the guy who has this tattoo. He was talking to another person I also didn’t know so, from a distance, I fired off one shot of his lower leg. I thought the lizard was cool.

Again, flowers everywhere. We  found these on our way to Fisherman’s Wharf for dinner. It took us nearly three hours to do the twenty minute walk because we were shooting the whole way. On this one I focussed on the bent pink flower in the middle because it was different.

One thing I like about shooting on Arizona Highways photo trips is seeing everyone’s images, that are SO different, from the exact same locations. It is fun to hear people say “WOW! Where didi you see that!?!”  and…”Where was I?”  I have asked the same questions. It’s fun to capture details of things that most folks just walk right past. Here is an example, a spider web full of rain drops.

Again with the flowers. This one caught my eye because of the unique diagonal lines in the background and the splash of color from the flower. I could have made the lines the complete background had I moved a little to the left. Oh well, next time.

When we finally made it to Fisherman’s Wharf the weather was setting in. It was gray and threatening to drizzle and any moment. Our first sight of the Wharf was of these unique houseboats. Similar to ones I’ve seen in Sausalito, California.

These houses are fun to shoot.

Not sure this was a home but it was a floating building at the Wharf and I loved the colors.

The folks in one of these floating homes had a sense of humor. This dingy was moored between two homes.

This is a great shot of the boats at Fisherman’s Wharf with the weather settling in.

These fun, whimsical, critters were coming out of the side of a building as we entered Fisherman’s Wharf.

More details of houseboats.

 

Paddles on the side of a houseboat.

Two orcas made of plants riding a plant wave just outside the Empress Hotel.

So, when you travel, or just walk around your own town, look for details. Take the sweeping, all encompassing shots for reference but look for those details that most people miss. It’s pretty cool when folks ask, “Where was THAT?”

Next week we’ll explore some official gardens in Victoria so stay tuned!

Happy Shooting!

Adventure, How To, Nature, Outdoors, Photography, Places to Shoot, Shooting Close to Home

Picture Canyon

My friend Amy Horn and I went out exploring one day after school. We had heard of this place called Picture Canyon but had never been. I had seen a sign for it so we grabbed our cameras and tripods, met in the parking lot of my school at 3:30 and headed out.

We drove east on Route 66 toward the Flagstaff Mall. Before we hit the I-40 overpass we turned right onto Old Route 66, the road that goes along the RR tracks behind the mall. We followed it for about a mile, saw the brown and white sign and turned left. We passed the water treatment plant and parked in one of two tiny parking lots.

We proceeded to look for a map of the area. After locating one and looking at if for a minute or two we chose to take the trail that went to the water fall and petroglyph sites. Great, we had a goal. Check out what else we found!

For this shot I pulled out my tripod, slowed the shutter speed and attached my variable ND filter in order to make it dark enough to get the milky look of the water.

Flagstaff has a waterfall…who knew? It’s small but fun to shoot nevertheless.  We arrived around 4:00 pm and the water was in shadow while the side of the canyon we were on was in full sun. It made for tricky shooting. That rock in the left corner of my image was in full sun. I didn’t do it but in hind sight this would have been a great time to use my bracketing feature on my camera. I can shoot as many as seven different shots and later combine them into an HDR in Lightroom. I recently discovered this feature in both my camera and Lightroom and have been quite pleased with the results.

The petroglyphs were a little farther down the trail. There weren’t a lot but we did find a few behind a well marked interpretive sign that explained their possible meanings.

Our trail eventually merged with the AZT (Arizona Trail), a trail that goes 800+ miles from the Utah border all the way to Mexico. What you see here is the AZT going across a little footbridge that crosses the Rio de Flag, our local stream that mostly runs in the spring with snow melt.

 Another image of our beautiful Ponderosa Pine forest  here in the Flagstaff area. Again, the Rio de Flag is the water feature.

It was a lovely afternoon shooting with my friend Amy. So there you go…find a friend, pick a place and go shoot!

Adventure, Gear, How To, Travel

How to Make an iMovie Trailer

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On Saturday I posted a video to Facebook.  It was a quick synopsis of my recent trip to Panama. The response was amazing with lots of comments about how great it was. I thought it would be fun to post, here, how I did it. Unfortunately the video file is too big for this site but feel free to check it out on my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Kachina-Photos-336869868248/

I went to panama with only two cameras, my Lumix GX-8 mirrorless with a 28-150 lens and my Canon S120 point and shoot with waterproof housing.  I brought my tripod but never used it. I know, shame on me.  Am I a real photographer?  Well, yes.  As they say…there are a hundred ways to skin a cat.

I am a self proclaimed minimalist and live by the “Less is More” philosophy. Most folks, while traveling, have enough to deal with without being bogged down with camera gear. It is one of my goals, in this blog,  to show  how to travel with minimal gear and still get compelling, interesting and fun images, both moving and still.

I didn’t have a full storyboard planned out in my head before I started. And, to be sure, this is “vacation photography”. I wasn’t sent there on assignment and  didn’t have the luxury of  spending two weeks capturing a single, perfect shot.   At times I happened to be out during the  wonderful lighting of sunrise or sunset but, for the most part, it was mid-day, ordinary, vacation travel. I did know, however, that I needed make a conscious effort to hit the record button knowing I wanted to make this video in the end.  As I wandered and saw action happening around me I purposely captured it in video, not stopping the action  in a still frame. I took mostly 5 second snippets of  events knowing that the iMovie Trailer program only uses up to two seconds of video at a time.

So, how did I do it? You’ll be amazed at how easy it is. At this point, if you don’t have a Mac with iMovie then I’m not sure how useful the rest of this will be to you, but here it goes. I’ll just number the steps to make it easier to follow.

1. Gather all of the little videos out of Lightroom and move them into a folder on my desktop.

2. Open iMovie and select Create New.  Here you have two choices, a movie or a trailer. I chose trailer knowing that a lot of the work is already done for me. Also, Facebook readily posts trailers because it doesn’t use copyrighted songs where as in a movie you would choose a full length song with words…and a copyright.

3. Choose a theme. I went with Travel.

4. Select Add Media. Here you will highlight and open your movie files on your desktop. This will add them to your trailer.

5. It gives you three ways to organize your story, Outline, Storyboard and Shot List. Under Storyboard you can change the words on the title slides that appear to better fit your needs. You can’t change the music or length of any of the videos.

And seriously, that’s it. You drag and drop your videos into the slots you want, change the words and when you’re done iMovie has a direct link to Facebook. Most cameras these days have the ability to video. I encourage you to play with it. It’s pretty fun and adds a flair to your vacation photos that goes beyond the still image.

Happy Shooting!!