So I was Thinking…
I was prowling around some old teaching handouts of mine preparing for my upcoming workshops and found this excerpt from an article I wrote 20 years ago entitled “On Becoming a Pro.” the message is as relavent now as is was then. The premise of the article was a series of questions an amateur photographer might ask some old, crusty pros. Just for the record, I wasn’t crusty, then. I did updated some of the quotes of my friends John Shaw and Wayne Lynch. “How would you define an accomplished photographer?” John Shaw is the first to respond: “Learning when not to photograph is just as important as learning when to shoot. This process involves learning to see your subject as your camera will see it. The human eye can accommodate roughly 10 to 12 stops of contrast; that is, we can look at a very contrasty scene and see detail in both the shadow and highlight area. Not so with film or digital. An accomplished photographer has to learn how to apply this limited vision when determining exposures even if when doing HDR. And, by the way, what is the quality of the light when you are thinking of shooting a HDR shot ? Awful- wait for better light and you’ll get a better shot. a photographer has to be able to analyze a scene and determine if indeed it is possible to record his vision. He must know what the results will look like, even before the shutter is tripped. This knowledge lets the pro decide where to place tonal values and what details to sacrifice if necessary.” David Middleton pipes up next: “ I would answer by saying a pro is one who spends more time looking for something to photograph then actually photographing it. I am always amazed when I am out in the field and see a group of photographers pull up, jump out of their cars, walk to the nearest whatever and begin photographing! Now, how do they know that there isn’t something better to shoot just over there or around the corner? And what are the chances that they happened to park next to the best thing there is to photograph? The answer is: nil. An accomplished photographer gets out of his vehicle and wanders first, looking over the entire area. In any one spot there are only a few things best to photograph. Better to spend the time looking for those shots then waste it photographing something that could be better.” Practically bursting, Wayne Lynch, who has spent a lifetime studying and photographing animal behavior, knows that photographing any wild creature begins long before he steps into the field. ” I think every nature photographer should also strive to be a good naturalist. Too often I have met wildlife photographers who didn’t know the difference between a northern moose and a chocolate mousse. The more you know about an animal the less likely you are to endanger it or compromise its survival. Understanding the biology of your subject will also alert you to subtle aspects of its behavior that you may otherwise overlook and you’ll be able to anticipate behavior and capture it rather than be surprised by it and miss it. Finally, knowledge of an animal is also the best insurance against injury. Many wild animals are unforgiving and will reprimand your clumsy ignorance with a bruising, or worse. This applies to anything you happen to be photographing- the more you know about your subject the better your images will be. You’ll be able to find them when you want to, you’ll be able to recognize exceptional individuals (the ones to photograph!), you’ll understand what is significant about subject and be sure to include it in your composition and you’ll be able to talk about them knowledgeably when an admirer asks you about your picture. If you don’t know what you are photographing and you don’t figure it out afterward you are more of a snap shooter than a true photographer.”
Some Diffused Thoughts on Photography
Its diffuser season here in Vermont, the time of the year when there is lots of little stuff to photograph and often lots of bright sun in the sky. Unfortunately, those two things don’t usually go hand in hand. Here is my rule of thumb on the relationship between the type of light and subject- soft, delicate subjects need soft, delicate light and hard, sharp subjects need hard, sharp light. So if you are photographing wildflowers or fiddle heads wait for soft light and if you are photographing cacti and granite wait for direct sunlight. But what happens when you can’t (or don’t want to) wait for the appropriate light? In steps the diffuser. We all know what a diffuser is, yes? A diffuser is a thin piece of white nylon in a thin flexible frame, usually round in shape that is used to soften, or diffuse direct sunlight. I call it a cloud in a bag. All you have to do is put the diffuser between the sun and your subject and viola, you’re good to go! Ah, but there is a catch. Isn’t there always? Now pay attention, this is the important part- I think diffusers are the most misused piece of photography gear. That’s right, misused. How could you possibly misuse a diffuser? It would be like misusing a lamp shade- light bulb, sofa, lampshade goes in between the two. Sunlight, flower, diffuser goes in between the two. How is this difficult? Glad you asked! The important thing about using a diffuser is where you place it relative to your subject. Where photographers always go wrong when using a diffuser is that they always place it too far away from the subject. For a diffuser to be most effective it has to be as close as is possible to the subject. How close is close? Here is the rule: the diffuser should be just on the outside edge of your viewfinder. When it is this close it produces a beautiful soft, radiant light that makes your subject glow. If you move the diffuser just a foot farther away the light produced by the diffuser is no different than the light produced by your shadow. How can this be true, you ask? If you remember from your high school physics class, light diminishes at the square of the distance traveled. So it doesn’t take much distance for the light to go from glowing to simply glum. I know, you don’t believe me. You think this is just more hot air in the hot air filled blogosphere. Okay, test it yourself. Go out on a sunny day with your diffuser and watch your subject as you slowly move the diffuser closer. The quality of light doesn’t change much until the diffuser gets almost on top of the subject. Then, as if by magic, you will see your subject actually glow. Move the diffuser back a few inches and the glow disappears. Move it back in and the glow returns. Not magic but certainly magical. Well, that’s it, right? Nope, there’s more! This is graduate level diffuser knowledge. Most of the time I am using a diffuser the sky is partly cloudy, partly sunny so my choices are diffused light from a cloud or from my diffuser or straight sunny light. But there is a difference between light coming through a cloud and light coming through a diffuser. Sunlight coming through a cloud is very cool, very blue whereas sunlight coming through a diffuser is very warm, very golden. So depending on your subject it may be appropriate to not use a diffuser and wait for a cloud for cool light or it may be better to use a diffuser because you want warm light on your subject. So there you have it, everything you wanted to know about using a diffuser and then some. It is not just use it or not, it’s how you use it. Isn’t that always the way it is?
Do a Background Check
It is that time of the year for flower photography, at least for most of you. Not so up here in the cold climes of Vermont but else where many of you are scraping off the icy crust of inactivity lingering from this last winter and are out searching for wildflowers to photograph. So what is the most overlooked aspect of wildflower photography? We all know about pretty, soft light for pretty soft and delicate subjects such as flowers and we all know about choosing a flower that is in prime condition (no browning or wilting allowed!). but most of us forget that to get the best possible photo of a flower the equally important thing to remember is the quality of the background. You can pick the prettiest flower in magnificent light but if the background is distracting your picture is toast. I approach all my flower photography based on the background. When I find a patch of flowers I select the individual flower to photograph based on its background. this is what I consider when looking for a great background: Is the background far enough away so that my subject will be in focus but the background won’t be? Out of focus background are only partly due to the f-stop you use. The other part is the distance to the background. I try to photograph from an angle that puts the background at least a foot or two beyond my subject. Is the background a complimentary color to my subject? A purple flower against a blue background or a pink flower against a red background just doesn’t look great. And finally, is the background soft? By this I mean does it have hard lines (sticks or branches) going through it or is there contrasty light behind the subject. If the answer to any of these questions is yes I either look for a different angle to photograph or I look for a different subject to photograph. By the way, the idea of approaching a subject based on the background is also paramount in wildlife photography and portrait photography. In fact, you could almost say that the quality of the background in any genre of photography is always paramount. So always do a background check. It’ll give one less thing for annoying critiquers and photo judges to chastise you about. [nggallery id=22]
A Bit of News
I wanted to let everyone know that there are only a couple places left on both my Pacific Rim National Park workshop ( on Vancouver Island, Canada and on my Shooting Like a Pro workshop that I hold in my home area of Manchester, Vermont. The Pacific Rim National Park is the wildest, most wonderful workshop location that I know of in North America. The trees are the biggest, the tide pools the most magnificent, the beaches the widest and most empty, and the town (Tofino) the most fun and funkiest. This is one of the few workshops that I do that you won’t mind hearing me prattle on because there are so many wonderful places to go and explore and photograph. I promise, you will wonder how you never knew about this place when you are done with this workshop and you will be planning your next trip back. Shooting Like a Pro is the answer to the question you have been asking yourself- “What am I going to do with all these pictures? Is there anything more to photography than a hundred pretty pictures?” We will tell you what you can do with all your pictures- ways to share your images, link your images into stories and also make money with your images- and also share with you the joys of finding a focus for your photography. It is the best workshop I teach because it is absolutely customized for each participant. You will be so energized after this workshop your photography will become exciting and fulfilling again. Now, do you really have something better to do than treat yourself to one of these workshops? Really? Come on, sign up, you’ll love it!
More on Phiddling
The larger concept with regards to fiddling around too much before taking a picture is that in the digital photography world a camera is nothing more than a device to capture data. That’s it. Picture taking is the process of capturing a good set of data. This means there aren’t too many blocked up shadows or burned out highlights, the depth of field is appropriate to what you want in focus (and out of focus) and the ISO is not to high creating bad noise. You don’t have to capture the best set of data when you take a picture, all you have to do not capture a bad set of data. After you have captured your data (taken a picture) now you have to process it. That is where your computer comes in. Just like the old film days, you take a picture and then it is processed. Your camera gives your computer a good set of data. You then process it into the best set of data. You do this in your computer because, as I mentioned in my last post, you computer is much more precise than your camera. You will never be able to get as good a data set in your camera as you can in your computer. So don’t worry about trying to overly fine tune your picture. Take the picture and make it the best it can be in your computer. And stop phiddling around!!
Phiddling with Photography
One of the common things I see when doing workshops is how much phiddling, excuse me, fiddling goes on before a picture is taken. Fiddling, for those of you who aren’t familiar with this technical term, is the art of making unnecessary and ridiculously fine adjustments to a image that is basically just fine. The two places that people fiddle the most are with exposure and composition. I think fiddling with exposure comes from the days when experts would tell us that our tonalities in our histogram should be well over to the right side because that is where most of the digital information lives. They then would encourage us to tweak our exposure to make move the tonalities to the right so just enough to make it perfect. What a bunch of nonsense! We spend so much time fiddling around with our exposure that by the time we got it just right either the light has changed or the subject has bounded away. Fiddling with composition is a lingering after-effect of critiquing. Any one who has ever done a critique feels compelled to say something about every picture even if there is nothing really to say. This, of course, doesn’t apply to me because all my critiquing comments are magically insightful gems that are always elucidating and astonishingly educational! And it is actually okay to fiddle with your composition just don’t do it too finely in your camera. And there is the point of all this- take the best picture you can and then when it is in your computer do the fine tuning, the fiddling there. Your computer is much more precise than your camera will ever be. In your computer you can vary just the dark tonalities or just the middle tones whereas in your camera when you vary your exposure you are effecting all your tonalities. Compositionally, in your computer you can crop just one side or two sides to get the best picture whereas in your camera when you zoom in or out you are effecting all sides of your composition. The images presented here are cropped on just two sides from how it was taken in the camera. I knew I was going to do this while I was taking the shot so I didn’t worry about the exact composition. I shot a little big and then made the precise crop in-camera. Don’t get phrustrated phiddling around, shoot big and be happy!
Harboring Abstract Thoughts
I just returned from a great workshop for the Rhode Island Photographic Society. We spent much of our time prowling around the beautiful coast of this little state, a coast that is more than 400 miles long! Two mornings we headed for the working harbor of Galilee and my students got some amazing shots- wonderfully bizarre and colorful abstracts mostly. They quickly realized that there was much to see and photograph in a working harbor. I expect they all will go back for more. If you have never had a chance or a thought about wandering the docks of a working harbor with the old boats and tangles of gear I would strongly suggest that next you are close to one you stop in and go for a wander. Remember, this type of photography is play so just have have and don’t worry about too much. Just have fun and see what you might get. The second day we went to Galilee a captain of one of the big off-shore trawlers invited us on board his boat to have a look around and take all the pictures we wanted. My students got pictures of the crew fixing nets and working on gear as well as shots of the interior of the big boat. Another example of the great things that can happen when you hang around the docks and are open to new experiences.
Wine Country
Looking for any excuse to get out of the protracted winter we have been having in Vermont, Claire and I headed out to California to scout and do some preliminary research for a book project on wine country. This is vacation photography, nothing serious. The book is still a year or two away but I wanted to see what the competition and what the potential for images might be. I am happy to report that the competition is slight and the image potential is great! Early April is not the prettiest time of year in Napa but it is plenty pretty enough. Here are a few of the images I took. The vines are just starting to leaf out so in a month or two the landscape will be leafier and much greener but the patterns of the rows will be lost. I guess I will have to come back then too!
My First Video!!
It has been awhile and there have been a few false starts but finally, with the considerable help from friends I am able to share my first video with you. There is nothing very special about this video and you will learn nothing by watching it but I hope you enjoy it. I shot this video with my Nikon D3s at a lodge in Ecuador last January. This was one of 6 feeders around the patio and each one was equally busy. Ecuador hummingbirds from David Middleton on Vimeo. The biggest birds are honeycreepers and bananaquits, the rest hummingbirds. There are over 130 species of hummingbirds in Ecuador so a congregation like this is not that unusual. It is wonderful though.
Thinking Like a Pro
Thinking Like a Pro For a few years now I have been doing a program that I call “Thinking Like a Pro.” Setting aside the obvious jokes about pro photographers and thinking it is a program that encapsulates how I have gone about the business of photography for many years. I think it is one of the best programs I do and perhaps one of the most valuable because it is practical and all about you the photographer. I’ll share the highlights with you here. So how does a professional photographer go about taking a picture? Does the process start before he or she even gets to the location? What does he or she think about getting ready to take the photograph? What are the overarching principles that he or she follows? Is this any different from how amateurs approach a shot? Curious yet? Here goes. First, pros only shoot in the best light. If you think about it why would you shoot in any other kind of light? And, no, you can’t create great light in the computer. And, yes, I know what you are thinking- what happens if the light isn’t the best? Pros don’t photograph when the light is bad. Why? Because there is very little we can do with an image of something in average light when there are dozens of pictures of the same subject in great light. If I need it for a specific project I might use a mediocre shot if I am desperate but I will do so hesitantly. I will never share such a shot and I will never send it out for other publications. Pros choose subjects to photograph based on the quality of the light at the time. In other words, choose your subject based on what is best in the light you have. Amateurs typically decide on the subject to photograph before they even get to a location and then try to force it into whatever the light is at the time they are ready to shoot. This is how you get pretty subjects in less than pretty light. This is how you get less than pretty pictures. I may really want to do a portrait or a landscape but if the light is strong and direct I won’t. I’ll look for backlit subjects or do reflections both of which are perfect in strong, direct light. If I have a specific shot in mind I won’t bother to go out unless the light is right. Of course, pros also often have the luxury to wait for the light to be the best while amateurs, being contributing members of society, often do not. Secondly, pros only use the best capture. I use my best technique for every shot I take. I set my camera for the best capture possible. I only photograph the best subjects and I spend a lot of time making sure that there are not any better subjects or situations nearby. When I do find the best subject and situation I choose the best angle, the best tripod placement and the best depth of field to get the shot I want. All of this is deliberate; I have thought every part of this out to maximize my results, to get the best picture I can possibly get. Try this next time you are our photographing. Imagine me interrupting you just before you are about to push your shutter and asking you these questions- “Why is your tripod that high, in that position?” “Why are you taking the picture at that angle?” “Are you sure your background is going to be okay? Is it the best background you can find?” “Why are you using that f-stop, that shutter speed, that ISO?” I know, scary, huh? The point to these questions is that you should have a very specific answer to each of these questions- “My tripod is this high because any lower I was getting sky and any higher I was missing the front of the subject.” “I am using this f-stop because any smaller made the background stand out too much and any bigger didn’t get enough of my subject in focus.” Everything is deliberate. When it is deliberate it becomes your best (why would you deliberately not do your best?). Shoot your best. Okay, you have shot your best in the best light now keep only your best. This is one of the hardest things for amateur photographers to do. Amateurs have this amazing ability to justify keeping just about any picture they take- “Ooh, I like the splashing water, I’ll keep it (I cut off the ears and I missed the focus but the splash is great!).” “It’s close to being in focus (I only missed it by a foot or so).” Here is the test. If you consistently show only one or two of the 20 or 40 or 400 similar images you have of one subject get rid of the rest. Don’t keep images you wouldn’t show anyone. Why? There is a reason you won’t show them to other people- there is something wrong with them!!! Why keep images that you know are flawed? Don’t keep your second best. If you give your best images 5 stars why are you keeping the ones with 3 stars? If you have a folder of favorites, why are you keeping all those images you haven’t looked at in 2 years? Don’t try to answer these questions you’ll just get yourself into more trouble. Pros are ruthless editors. I go through and delete every image that is technically flawed or artistically lacking- every last one. Then I identify my best ones and delete all the rest. I will shoot 1200 images in a morning out on a lobster boat but I will keep 15 and that is a good day. If I get better ones the next time I go out then those that I have bested are gone. Bye-bye, see you later. No