A Summer Photo Tip.

​Sure, there's still some snow on the ground, but summer is just around the bend. I promise. So, let's brush up on a key summer photo skill:

There are a few things as iconically estival (Yes, estival is actually a word. For God's sake look it up, people.) as the great American past time of finding something sort of tall-ish and then jumping off of it into something sort of cold and wettish. It's tradition. And more than that, it's frickin' awesome. Ideally, the distance to the water will be greater than or equal to the height at which you feel slightly uncomfortable. And the water will be less than or equal to the temperature at which you gasp slightly upon entry. If either of these factors is not in the optimal range, the equation can still be balanced by attempting  to invert one's self in the distance between the take off and landing. All complex math aside, jumping off of stuff is neat. And so is having good photographic evidence of said act. So here's a few summer photo tips for capturing the perfect cliff jump.

***WARNING: Jumping off stuff is dangerous. Always make sure you have a safe landing zone clear of obstacles and with enough water to cushion any fall. Also, try not to be dumb. You have been warned. Anything you do now is your own fault.***

Choose an angle- Pick a location from which to shoot that gives your audience some context information. Let us see the jumper, the water and the rock. Also keep in mind where the light is coming from. A jumper silhouetted against a bright sky can be cool, but it may not convey much information about what's going on. Try changing your angle to show us more of the scene.

Set your exposure- The key here is to choose an accurate exposure that has the capacity to freeze fast motion (which means you need a high shutter speed) and enough depth of field to accommodate a moving subject. Based on the standard principles of gravity and acceleration the average person will fall at a rate of...um...hang on a second, carry the 2...fast. They'll be going fast. So you're going to need a shutter speed in the range of at least 1/1000 of a second to truly freeze their rapid downward motion. Not to mention capturing the epic curtain of water caused by their often less than graceful entry into the drink. This is one of those activities where a faster shutter speed will never fail you. Aim high.

Lock the Focus- ​The auto focus system on most cameras will struggle to lock onto a moving subject and fire off a frame in the time that it takes a person to exit a cliff top and enter the water. That means you'll miss the shot. So you're better off switching over to manual and focusing on something that will be the same distance from you as the jumper at the optimal location in their descending arc. With the camera pre-focused, you can fire off frames with no delays. Now you're ready.

Time your shot- ​Don't just set your camera to rapid fire and machine gun frames as your screaming friend careens towards the water. Even high frame rate bodies miss moments in between the frames. Instead of trying to capture every moment, watch for the perfect moment, and try to capture just that. One great image will always be better than 10 mediocre ones. After all, how many are you really going to hang on your wall? This kind of timing takes practice. But with a little work you can start to anticipate when the greatest moments will happen. Combine that with good composition and you'll have a great photo.

Now get out there and try not to hurt anybody!​

Surviving the Elements: Part One-COLD.

In light of this recent cold snap (-16 at our house yesterday morning), I thought it might be a good time to start a little series on how to protect your camera from the elements. I've been meaning to do this for a while and now seems like as good a time as any. Every year, I get a handful of e-mails from people wondering how to protect their camera from extreme cold or heat, humidity, dust, snow, and a bunch of other conditions that are hard on cameras. It also seems to be one of the biggest concerns that people have when I teach workshops. 

Yes, the world can be hard on cameras. But some of the roughest situations also offer some of the best images. So instead of just leaving your camera tucked away safely at home, there are a few simple things you can do to help it survive the elements. In this installment we'll cover COLD:

• Keep the batteries in your pocket. Cold eats up batteries like an angry little hedgehog eats...um...I have no idea what hedgehogs eat. Hedges, I guess? May be not. I have no idea. Anyway, cold is bad for batteries. In sub-zero temperatures you can pretty much watch the battery meter plummeting to zero. Usually the camera will die just before you get the best shot of the day. If you can keep the batteries in your pocket (preferably an inside coat pocket close to your body) and then put them into the camera right before you start shooting, you can get a lot more life out of them. Some people try to keep the whole camera and lens tucked inside a warm coat, but this can cause condensation on the lens or viewfinder, which can then turn to frost when exposed to the cold again. Not ideal. And even more problematic, if that moisture gets inside the lens and body it can create spots on the sensor. By keeping just the battery warm you avoid this problem. It also helps to have a few batteries to rotate in and out of the camera. If one gets cold enough to die, switch it for a fresh one and warm it up, they'll usually recover some power as they thaw and can be used a little more later on. Especially if I'm shooting with a tripod, I get the entire shot lined up and even focused before I pull the battery out of my pocket and put it in the camera. The warmer it stays, the longer it will last.
• Carry a drybag (or a big zip lock freezer bag). Obviously, a drybag is great for protecting the camera from heavy snow fall or other precipitation in the field. But there's a less obvious function it can serve. It's important to protect a cold camera from condensation when you bring it back into a warm space like your house or car. If you bag and seal it outside in the cold dry air and then leave it in the bag indoors until the camera has warmed up to room temperature you can avoid getting any condensation on the camera. A weather proof cloth camera bag is not enough. You really need a fully waterproof/airtight container for this to work. (A pelican case can work great for this too, but drybags are a much cheaper solution.) Condensation on the outside of a camera or lens is mostly annoying, but relatively easy enough to clean up. Condensation on the inside of a lens or on the camera sensor can cause water spots after it dries. Those spots will then show up in all your other images. This is a real bummer (but fixable, watch for another post about sensor cleaning later in this series).
• Change your strap. If it's cold enough that you're concerned about your camera, it's a safe bet that you're not out there in your cut-off jeans and a sleeveless Mötley Crüe t-shirt. In fact, you're probably wearing something rather bulky and something on your hands (gloves, mittens, old socks with holes cut out for your thumbs, etc.). This can make slinging the strap for your camera over your shoulder a whole lot harder.
  Now, let me preface this advice by saying that if you talk to ten different photographers, all ten of them will have a different idea about the ideal camera strap. This is just my preferred method. Try it and see what you think. I like to run two small pieces of cord through the strap mounts on each side of the body and knot them each into a loop. Then I use small clips to connect the shoulder strap to those loops. Now instead of wrestling the strap off of your shoulder and getting hung up on your hood and thrashing around like a drunk monkey trying to punch itself in the back of the head, you can hold the camera, unclip one side of the strap and slide it neatly off your shoulder.
  Added bonus: You can also completely remove the strap for long exposure shots where just the slightest breeze can cause the strap to shake the camera and ruin your shot. And finally...
• Don't leave your camera in the car. Cameras can get cold. That's fine, but when they truly freeze you can do some real damage. There's a tiny amount of liquid in the LCD display on the back of a camera (and I believe in some sensors) that can, under very cold conditions, freeze and crack the glass. This is bad. And expensive. I've never heard of it happening while a camera is outside for even a lengthy shoot, but it can happen over a long night in a very cold car. This problem can easily be avoided by not leaving your camera in the car. The same is true at the other end of the spectrum when your car becomes a broiling summer inferno of camera melting rage. Perfect segue. Stay tuned for another post in this series about HOT.

The Classic 50mm.

The 50mm prime lens (meaning a fixed focal length of 50mm rather than a zoom) has been an unparalleled photographic work horse since the invention of 35mm film. It's often referred to as a normal or standard lens and it used to be the regular kit lens included with most camera bodies. A 50mm offers a happy medium between wide-angle and telephoto and, usually, a fast aperture (typically 1.8 or 1.4) that gives you the option to shoot in low light or isolate the subject with a sliver of sharp focus. It's simplicity encourages good technique, it's price is approachable ($100 to $500 depending on features and brand), and its versatility makes it potentially the only lens you'll ever need.

Now, before I get too high and mighty about this let me say that I am terrible at taking my own advice. This post is supposed to be about simplifying, about using your equipment to its fullest rather than buying something else. It's about truly mastering the basics rather than just upgrading your gear. I, on the other hand, have often done the opposite.

Over the past decade, I've bought and sold more photographic equipment than most small camera shops. At one point I even sold one 50mm lens and then promptly bought a different one. Out of desperation and nagging insecurity, I have several times attempted to buy my way out of photographic slumps and creative dead ends. It almost never works. I tend to travel with more camera equipment than clothing. I have been known to take multiple cameras for a "relaxing" afternoon at the beach. The back seat of my car is like a drifting dune of photo equipment, ebbing and flowing from driver to passenger side and back again. This is partly because I'm an idiot, but also because I fear that with out lots of fancy equipment on hand at all times I will miss a great photo. This is almost never the case. When I look back through my archive, I find that most of my favorite images were taken with minimal (and often cheap) equipment at times and in places where a huge camera case would have only held me back.

That in mind, here is my resolution: I'm going back to shooting with a 50mm...most of the time. Now, I have to hedge my bet a little because I know I will have clients and shoots for whom the 50mm just won't be quite enough. I'm not going all Kung Fu Master and leaving my worldly possessions behind to simply walk the earth. But I am going to try to get back to basics as much as I can. And shooting with a simpler rig is a great way to do that.

I find that bare bones equipment forces you to be more intentional about composition. It forces you to zoom with your feet rather than your fingertips, to look carefully, to think about angles, and to pay attention. PAY ATTENTION. It creates challenges that you have to think through rather than skirt around. In short, it makes you work a little harder, but it makes you better. And it rewards you with images that you wouldn't get any other way.

 So here's to the classic 50mm, long may it reign.

Gone to the Races.

The first real car I ever drove was a race car. I was ten or eleven and my cousin Jason was racing dirt track stock cars at the time. His car was pretty much exactly like the one in the last photo in this post. What possessed a man who spent all his free time working on his car to then allow that car to be driven by a ten year old, I will never know. But he boosted me in through the window, clipped me into the five point harness and crouched on the passenger side holding onto the roll cage while I drove for the first time. It was incredible. I'm not what you would call a stock car fan, but from that day on there has always been a little soft spot in my heart for dirt track racing. It's not like the big NASCAR events. It's all little teams of two or three guys working in garages and little shops and backyards, building a car on nickels and dimes, and giving it hell every Saturday night because its fun. And you can tell they're loving it.

Jason stopped racing a long time ago and I hadn't been to a track since he hung up his driving gloves, but yesterday I had a free night and Sarah was out of town, so I grabbed a camera and went to ABC Raceway in Ashland. If you've never been before, let me say that short track dirt racing is a quintessentially American past time: It's loud. It's dirty. And it's not quite like anything else I've ever seen. Like any new sporting experience, the key to really enjoying it is to pick someone to cheer for. I was rooting for the guys from Lakeshore Sales and Service since they replaced the brakes in my truck last week. Whoever you cheer for, win or lose, the fun is in the drama.

Since this kind of racing is so classic, I decided to shoot it in black and white with a heavy film grain to give it a more timeless look. These shots could be from any one of a thousand tracks on any summer Saturday night in the last 50 years. That effect, which roughly approximates a classic black and white film called Tri-X, also helps to cover the need for high ISO and cancels out the weird color combinations that come from a mix of halogen, tungsten, and sodium vapor stadium lighting. It's a very different feel than the rich colors and smooth gradients I usually try to get. It's not the right look for everything, but for this, I think it's perfect.

Kraut, Curtido, & Kim-Chi. (& Pesto...& a couple other things.)

Over the past couple weeks, I've been working on some new photography for Spirit Creek Farm in Cornucopia, Wisconsin. If you're not familiar with their products, Spirit Creek specializes in lacto-fermented foods (read this if you're not sure what lacto-fermented means). They're also making really delicious garlic scape pesto now, too. Great stuff. I've been a huge fan of their curtido for a while and, beyond being a brat-grilling must at our house, their kraut was also a Good Food Award winner in 2011 and 2012. That's no small achievement.

I love food photography like this. Partly I think, because I love prepping and plating the food for the shoot (real chef's are probably cringing at what I've done with these, but I'm still proud of them). There's a little part of me that thinks I should have been a chef. Maybe in my next life.

Airplane? Yes, please. And some aerial photo tips.

Yesterday afternoon, local pilot Bob Breunig took Julie Buckles and I up over Chequamegon Bay to get some photos of the sediment cloud coming from Fish Creek in the wake of last week's epic storms. The photos are going to be used to promote restoration projects along the Fish Creek basin to prevent future erosion of this kind. Great cause, and I always love getting up in a plane. Thanks for a great flight, Bob.

Several times in the last few years people have come to me out of the blue (pun not originally intended, but now I sort of like it) and asked if I want to shoot photos of something from an airplane. Does a platypus lay eggs? And just in case you don't know the answer to that question, it's "Hells Yeah!" I wish I could say that these aerial shoots are carefully planned, that I make them happen by working through my extensive network of contacts to arrange an airplane and pilot and all that, but that would be...well, pretty much flat out lying. To be honest, these chances just keep sort of falling in my lap. I love my job.

That said, I've had enough random cracks at it to figure out a few things that I do every time that seem to be good advice for airborne imagery. So here we go, the Hired Lens Photography Guide to Not Royally Failing at Aerial Photography:

1.) Ask if you can take the door off. Crazy, right? But some small planes and helicopters that don't have pressurized cabins can fly without a door on the side where you intend to be shooting. Nothing messes with a photo like shooting through a dirty, hazy or glared window. Best solution get the window out of the way. Obviously, this isn't possible on all planes and not all pilots want to do it. There are still some tricks to shooting through glass that can make for a better photo (yesterday, I was shooting through a window and you can see some reflections from the glass, but I was able to minimize them and get them into areas of the photo that don't matter, watch for a blog about how to do this in the next week or so). If you can take the door off, be prepared for the fact that this will make take-off and landing a little scarier as you watch the run way whizzing past next to you. Also be aware that communication in the air will be much harder due to the noise, even with the airplane headsets on. It's not a bad idea to come up with a few basic hand signals to alert the pilot when you want them to turn, when you want to make another pass over something, and when you're done shooting.

2.) Ask if the windows are polarized. Normally, I use a polarizing filter just about any time I'm shooting outside. But if the plane has polarized windows (which some do), and the answer to the above question is no, you'll have to take your filter off. Two polarized surfaces in combination create a trippy mess of colored lines and waves to rival any Pink Floyd laser-light show. Unless your project is a visual ode to Timothy Leary you're going to want to remove the polarizer.

3.) Pack an obscene amount of film. And by film, I mean memory cards. And by pack, I mean make sure that when you take your seat in the plane you can easily switch them without digging through a bag that will be strapped in a seat just out of arms reach behind you. Particularly in helicopters and especially when the door is off/open, everything in the aircraft needs to be secured to keep it from exiting through afore mentioned open door or bashing around in the cabin. This means that if you fill a card and your extras are out of reach, you're done shooting (insert sad trombone sound here). A card case in a shirt pocket is a good way to avoid this problem. I use one made by Pelican, the eyelet on top makes it pretty easy to teather to some other part of yourself to prevent unintentional ejection and its big enough to not be fumbly.

4.) Use a wide lens. Tips four and five sort of go hand in hand. The real key here is to limit the impact of camera vibration as much as possible. The longer the lens, the more even minute camera shake will appear in the images. A wide lens will be able to create sharper images even while moving fast and shaking quite a bit which small planes do.

5.) Choose what seems like a ridiculously high shutter speed, then go two stops faster. Besides focal length the other major factor for reducing the evidence of motion in the camera is shutter speed. Choose a shutter speed that should freeze the motion your experiencing and then over shoot it by a couple stops just to be safe. It's a real shame to get back on the ground and find out that your images were almost sharp. Almost...

6.) Eat lunch after the flight. A few years ago, I got to the airport and the first thing the pilot asked me was "how strong of a stomach do you think you have?" Great question. I've flown a lot and done a lot of stupid things on my own that have given me a pretty iron clad stomach, but I have to admit that on one particularly rough flight in Northern Minnesota I came way closer to booting in my camera bag than I ever expected. The flight patterns that make great aerial images easier are not always conventional and looking through the viewfinder the whole time doesn't help. If you do have a weak stomach consider one of two options: stay out of aerial photography all together or plan ahead. Pretty much any pilot would greatly prefer that you pull a plastic bag from your pocket instead of redecorating their instrument cluster.

And there you have it. Now get out there and try not to hurt anyone.

Why light matters.

Light matters in photography. Simply put, photography is light. Okay, maybe that's a little uppity sounding, but it's at least a recording of light. Light bouncing off of an object and entering the lens to be recorded in a chemical reaction on film or as a shit-ton of ones and zeros on a memory card. Right, right. You get that. I know. But good photography is about more than just the presence of light, it's also about the quality of light. Light has shape and direction and color. And with out boring the life out of you let me just say that they make a difference. A big difference. So at a certain point good photography is less about cameras and lenses and tripods, and more about learning to control light; making it do what you want.

Recently, my Dad asked me to shoot a photo of coatrack and bench that he built for us. So, first I cleaned up all the shoes and hat and gloves and other crap that's usually in our front hall, and then set about lighting it. I've been meaning to write about this process for a while, but I never seem to save the test shots that I take while setting up a shoot. Why? Because they're bad. And they should be, I use them to see what needs to change and then delete them. But this time I keep my grubby little fingers off the trash button so I could show you lovely people how I build a lighting setup.

So first is a shot of the room with no extra lighting, just an exposure with the ambient light in the room.

Blah. Flat boring light, very two dimensional and it's a little hard to tell what we're looking at. There's no definition in the coat on the rack or the boots on the floor, and the doorway into the other room is completely blacked out.

So next I add a light in the room for "fill." This brings the overall light level in the room up and fills in some of those shadows. Still not great, but better. Right?

Next I add a "key" or main light. This light, positioned outside the window in the front door, gives shape and depth and raises the light level in portions of the image. It also gives the cool shadows on the wall imitating real sunlight streaming into the room.

This light gives the photo interest. This photo was a test with out the fill light to see how bright the highlights would be on the wall and how dark the shadows are with out the fill. Kind of an interesting photo, but a little sinister. More importantly we can't see the the coat rack and bench very clearly and they after all are what we're photographing. If this was an art project I might prefer this one and work with it a little more to get the exact look I wanted, but this, people, is product photography. So we add the fill light back in, make a few little adjustments to the angles of the lights and BAM. Done-zo. Dad gets a photo to show off his hand work and no one assumes that I live in a cave. Thanks, additive lighting process!

**Okay, full disclosure the final image is also adjusted for lens distortion (notice how the bench and coat rack are alined with the top and bottom of the frame unlike the other images where one or the other is really crooked, sneaky huh?), which makes a difference in the final image, but I wasn't going to bother doing that with the test shots. They're just frickin' test shots, people. Either way you see what a difference the right kind of lighting can make. Pretty cool.

The Original Hipstamatic. (aka a camera).

Was that photo taken with an iPhone and the hipstamatic app, you ask? Oh, no. That's a real photo taken with a real F#$%^ camera, my friends. Remember those: little black boxey deal, you put a roll of this plasticy stuff in the back and then used them to make photographs. Anyone? No? Hmmm. Okay, to be fair I didn't shoot these with film, but I did use an old camera. I fanoogled a way to shoot through the old body and lens (complete with 60 years of true grit) using my current digital SLR. Pretty sweet. This particular one is a Kodak Dualflex II circa 1949. It's amazing the things you can find in your parents basement. Watch for some new stuff from this little guy ( I think I'm going to name him Marvin) in the next couple weeks. I've got big plans.