© Brian Parillo

It’s Sunday, nobody will care. I quickly change my lens and I feel like I’m in a race. What am racing for? Light usually and cloud positioning. These poor buildings. They must feel like I’m paparazzi when I show up because I really do want to invade them in every way. So out of my car I go as I begin staring up at these giants. It amazes me every time. I walk around them for a while and try to find something that looks different to me. Something that gives these enormous slabs of concrete a voice. I can imagine what I must look like to the average passerby.

© Brian Parillo

Lying in the middle of the street on my back or standing on some ledge must look fairly ridiculous. However, when I find a moment that truly speaks to me everything slowly goes to silent. The only thing I hear, which I ignore for as long as I can, is the security guard who is quickly walking toward me shouting “Sir, excuse me, Sir excuse me,! Excuse me!” Here’s where things get a little hairy. I’ve almost got my shot and he’s getting really close to ending this for me. I open up a little wider on my focal length, drop my camera speed one stop as the sun tucks behind a cloud, and I start shuttering away. “Excuse me Sir”, I hear again for the last time as I pull my camera down from my face. “Hi,” I say as politely as possible. “You can’t take pictures here,” he says as I ponder the idea of that phrase being my epitaph. “Oh you can’t?” “Okay sorry, take care.”

© Brian Parillo

As I get in my car I quickly review my shots. No, no , no, no, no, maybe, maybe, possibly but the light is a little to hot on the top portion of the far building in this shot. I may be able to save it in post. I start my car and off to the next location. I’ve always felt like some refugee on the run while stalking these buildings. It feels a bit sin city like down here and I’m enjoying every minute of it.

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I’ve been shooting architecture for quite a few years now. I choose to shoot in black and white mainly because it extenuates the lines of a building and because it separates the elements of the photograph resulting in a more clean and efficient look. It also creates a feeling as if you’re being dropped into a mysterious abstract world. I see integrity, elegance, strength and vulnerability in black and whites and I try to carry those emotions into my shots as well.

Website: www.brianparillophotography.com

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© Colin Gallagher

The road into the valley looked pretty well-plowed, which worried me. I wanted fresh snow. Untouched. My fears were soon dispersed as we made a right onto a side road and clearly left our mark as the first ones there since the snowfall. A mile drive through snow drifts and sagging, snow-laden evergreens later, we pulled off next to a bridge. Strapping on the boots, I headed out into the woods towards the lovely stream cutting through it. The first few shots were nice, and served their purpose in getting my juices (and warm blood) flowing as I stepped carefully from rock to rock, trying to get a shot down the stream towards the bridge. The game of cat and mouse with the sun was growing frustrating, the dark midday shadows cutting harsh lines through most of my pictures.

Enter Solstice, my friend’s adorable dog.

Crashing through the trees off the right side of my shot, a few of the smaller, bare trees brushed up against the evergreens towering over them, sending dusty snow sprinkling down through the sunlight. And just then, a breeze blew through. From the very tops of the pines, snow crystals began raining down all around me. The light from the sun softened, glittering as the cloud of snow diffused the harsh rays. I stood there, mesmerized for a moment while I got a second helping of falling snow in my own little part of Poe Valley. Then I remembered something…

Push the button, Colin.

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Colin is a 27-year-old Bellefonte photographer from Pennsylvania. His uncanny ability to completely destroy any piece of lighting equipment that he touches continually drives him outdoors to capture the breathtaking scenes Mother Nature has to offer.

Website: http://colintgallagher.com

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© Nick Fancher

The other important element in this shoot was the location. It was shot at the historic Milo Arts center in Columbus, Ohio. I had been given a tour of the place a few months prior, and noticed the amazing attic. It was over one hundred years old, and looked untouched. So when I was planning the location of my shoot with Abigail, I thought her timeless look would fit well in that old space. I also borrowed my friend’s tilt-shift lens to further add to the old feeling. ” – Photographer Nick Fancher

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I identified with this image because of the contrast in the composition. It has a very cool color palette, yet rather than being distant, it’s engaging. The bright white light of the window behind Abigail increases the intensity of the image. Her gaze goes from engaging to hypnotizing. As I work with Nick and document his work, I am fascinated to break down the creative process, seeing every detail he puts in place as an artist. The creative process is something that isn’t often explored, and that’s what I hope to provide with my work.

That’s why I’m currently working on a feature-length documentary that will focus on Nick and his work, as well as two other great photographers – Andria Lindquist of Seattle, WA and Kim A. Thomas of San Francisco, CA. The documentary, titled “Portrait” is now funding on Kickstarter. It will explore the question: “In the age of Instagram, what sets a professional photographer apart?”

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Andy Newman is a freelance video producer, director of photography, and editor specializing in commercial, short form documentary, fashion and modeling videography.

Website: http://portraitdocumentary.com

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The air is filled with sweet songs of birds – a herald to us all that longer and sunnier days are fast approaching. One bird that I have always wanted to photograph, and have never had much success due to its flighty nature, has been the robin. Hence it was a very special day when a robin gave me the privilege of befriending it and offered me the opportunity to enter its world and photograph it up close and personal. It was a humbling experience and one that will last with me for the rest of my life. I personally consider it a gift to have been given the opportunity to showcase the beautiful bird that is the Robin.

I initially started shooting these images with a Canon 70-200mm lens mounted on a Canon 50D but as time went on, and as I gradually befriended the bird, I changed over to a Sigma 17-70mm lens that helped to get really up close to the bird and capture some of the images you see showcased here. All the images were taken handheld and owing to the fact that the robin was more than willing to pose for the pictures, I was able to experiment with different angles to capture the optimal image. This showcases another important aspect of wildlife photography – investing time in understanding and building trust with your subject always pays off.

Kurien Koshy Yohannan is a Scottish based professional Corporate event photographer who in his spare time loves photographing wildlife, nature and aviation related subjects.

Facebook: http://facebook.com/BlackStallionPhotography

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So how do you go about photographing an event like this, without intruding on their religious beliefs and not offending anyone? It’s a tall order to be respectful and yet get some great images.  Also how do you prepare for seeing the extreme piercing that is before your eyes?  I said to myself I had to look for photographs that were bold, clean and accurate in photographing the persons piercing, and then move on to the next person after you had hopefully got the shot.  I only really started to see the extreme piercing I had photographed in detail when I got home and was reviewing the photographs, and then you see the detail in the photos. It was useless trying to edit them on the fly at the event, reasons: – too many people around you, too bright even in the shade to see the screen on the back of the camera, it was very busy, so you did not have time to review any shots on the two days.

My worries were unfounded, as when I went towards the two Indian Temples where all the ceremonies’ etc were taking place and there were many thousands of people all around, a lot of them were taking part, being cleansed with the milk etc.

The down and up side to the large crowds at this event, on the downside you missed images because of someone getting in your way or quite simply you could not get the angle you wanted, and on the upside you were invisible, you could get your shot and disappear, sometimes without any one knowing you had been there.  Also a smile and a simple “thank you” went a long way, if they did notice you, no one objected to being photographed, as there were a lot of people with camera phones and had being photographed along the route many times.

Using the crowds as cover it is quite obvious when a “devotee” was approaching, so you had to look for a space in the crowds where you could slip in and get the shot.  However walking the route I found there was a policeman on a corner where they came off the main road and towards the temple, he was very good at crowd control all on his own (his assistant was not so good), he kept the spectators away from the devotees (to give them respect as they need space with what they are doing), this meant that I had space between me and the subject to get the shot as I followed them up the short path to the temple.

Some the people were just walking too fast, and as they approached me quite quickly, directly after photographing another devotee, I had little time to compose the shot, and untimely I had to let the shot go, which was a shame, but with so many people doing this, it was not long before the next one was going to come by you.

At this corner they often stopped, did a dance or a mini break before the final walk 200-300m before the long climb up the stairs to the final prayers at the top.  The other thing in my favor was a barrier that tried to keep the people moving in one direction either side e.g. left side up and right side down.  You have to use everything to your advantage and if someone look badly at you, or you just bump into them, just smile and say sorry, sounds to good to be true, but I did not cross words with anyone during the whole two days.

The temperature was around 35 deg C and most of the route was in the sunshine, so it was hot for all, between photographs you did try and find a little shade from the searing sun, and yes I did go through a lot of water (4 litres when at the festival and lots more when I got home).

Now for the coconut smashing, this was a little different, it was more of a party atmosphere there, as the road/path that the silver chariot was going pass on needed to be cleansed with coconut milk, it’s a serious event, but with a fun side to it.  However you had to dodge coconuts coming towards you as they were smashed to the ground and splitting open, and the pieces went flying, I had many hit my shins and feet.  Also the other thing you need to watch is the milk from the coconut, and it splashing all around you, hitting you and the camera lens, I was often had milk hit the lens, so frequent cleaning was the order of the day.  However I was told that being splashed by the milk brought you good fortune, so I did not mind.

As these coconut smashing sessions were in small batches of around 100-200 meters long, you could photograph one and then wait for the next one to start, so you can correct your mistakes as you go, again, no one stopped me taking any photographs, you had to dodge some traffic on the other side of the road sometimes, but it was slow moving, so that was OK.  When photographing a crowd of people smashing the coconuts, it was good to let the camera be on continuous shooting, at what ever max frames per second it would allow, and then edit afterwards, as trying to time the shots, was near impossible as I started out like that, trying to photograph a person in full throw, so I gave up and photographed either the crowd or a particular person in the crowd smashing the coconuts, and then let the camera do its work at 3-5 frames per second and then review when you get home. I got some of my best shots this way along with some sequences of the coconuts being smashed along with the blurs of the milk splashes from the ground.

Prior to the event I had contacted a news syndication agency and to see of they could sell any of these photographs to newspapers and magazines, they knew the shots were coming and currently I have 32 images up on their servers, this is hard to edit down from 1400 over the 2 days, I sent them around 90 in total and they did a final edit for me, as they know what might sell to these outlets.  All the photographs were shot on a Nikon D90, with 28-200 VR2 lens.  For more info on the actual event: Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaipusam

Michael Crawford-Hick photography is an eclectic mix of all things water related e.g. sailing, windsurfing, powerboats, as well as abstracts of waves, reflections, beaches, sunset.

Links:

Websites: Images From Around the World, Prints by Post
Twitter: http://twitter.com/mchphoto
Blog: http://mchphoto2011.wordpress.com

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Rick Sammon famously talks about Exploring the Light and has a great book to prove it, but here it’s all about chasing the light. The skies can be grey for days on end, windy and rainy and all this can play havoc with your shooting schedule.  When you plan for a landscape shoot of a mountain vista looking out over the sea, inevitably the sky turns a blanket of blown out grey, blurring the horizon with the sea.  Granted some cloudy days can prove very picturesque, but you need definition in the sky for that to work.  You need to be able to bring out the contrasting shades of grey.  The old black glass or ND filter can help, but sometimes you just have to pack it in.  On other days you’re set for a macro shoot of the botanical gardens just as the southerly winds from Antarctica pick up and make shooting close-ups near impossible.  What is the frustrated photographer to do?  Well, one goes to the hardware store and buys a sheet of Perspex of course; wraps it around to create a cylinder and melds the edges together.  Now place that over the flower or other subject matter and wallah, no more wind interfering with my shooting.  Working in variable elements requires myriad techniques.  I have learned this nowhere more so than New Zealand.

Fairly recently I was sent to a beach just north of the country’s biggest city Auckland to do some fine art shots at low tide.  The plan was to use the images in an advertising blitz for the summer holidays.  Summer is just coming to an end here.  I had dedicated two full days to the shoot and closely monitored the weather forecast – it’s so changeable.  All looked good, my plan was to utilize golden hour, just before sunset,  as this time of day works perfectly at the beach.  I had some compositions in mind and set off on the hour long drive with my trusty assistant.  By the time we arrived at the beach a weather front had rolled in and the whole scene was grey and washed out.  Not deterred, we wandered about the beach looking for good vantage points and planned the shoot for the following day.  Patience is probably a photographers best asset.

Next morning the wind had picked up and the grey remained.  Disappointed, but not defeated we decided to forget the beach and instead headed off for a nearby temperate rainforest.  Shooting in a forest on a dull day can be very rewarding.  The light is even and there are no harsh bright spots clashing with the blacks.  We weren’t there long, when this amazing Tibouchina bud came to our attention.  There were a number of them, but this one looked incredible.  Now to get the shot.  The wind made shooting macro a little trying, especially as I was hand-holding the camera, but after just three shots I had captured it just as I perceived it.  The bud as it is about to flower looks like something out of that scary 1950s novel by John Wyndham The Day of the Triffids.  A few other nice macros were also taken that day, just to prove that when the light and/or weather isn’t behaving look elsewhere, try to match the conditions and never give up.  There is always something you can shoot.

Oh and btw, I finally managed to capture that beach shot.  I decided on a storytelling composition that has a foreground, middle and distant horizon that are all in focus.  I love to use this technique on landscapes and you can achieve this simply by focusing a third of the way in on your scene.  Here I shot with a focal length of 30mm at an aperture of f/16 which gave me an awesome amount of depth of field.  By using the small aperture with a wide angle focal length you can create images that have continuity, images that essentially have the potential to lead the eye all the way into the scene.

Susan Blick is the founder of Photoopolis and an Australian freelance photographer in Auckland, New Zealand.

Links:

Website: www.photoopolis.com
Twitter: @photoopolis

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Over the years, I have anticipated their seasonal arrival, and with camera in hand, I begin taking advantage of some great photo opportunities. The first time I attempted to photograph hummingbirds, I was not pleased with the results. My images were not in focus, and often times came out grainy and overexposed. Learning from these photos, a different approach was used in an attempt to improve the image quality.

After reviewing my errors, it was determined that first off, I was in a rush; I did not take the time needed to properly dial my camera into the environment I was shooting in. Secondly, I used the wrong lens for the situation. A super zoom lens was used and I did not need to employ such a lens for the situation. Based on these mistakes, I wanted redemption, and would not be denied.

On an early Saturday morning, I set up my camera near the hummingbird feeder and proceeded to patiently wait for these fast flyers to start their morning feeding frenzy. Surprisingly I waited almost an hour for some action and when the birds started to feed, they noticed my presence. Every time I would move to focus on the subjects, they would immediately fly away. To capture the images I literally had to be in position and motionless to snap the images. Over the coarse of the morning, the hummingbirds became more comfortable with my presence and even began to land on some of the existing vegetation’s we had planted in years prior to clean themselves. Although I was able to capture some nice images with their long tongues out, my position had some obstructions in place that took away from those photos. My advice when trying to photograph hummingbirds is simple. Patience and time, Allow them to become comfortable with your presence. Doing so will benefit you greatly.

The shots: Canon camera and Tamron lens combination. 270mm focal length with an aperture of f-8. ISO setting at 400 with a shutter speed of 1/500 to 1/800 of a second.

Michael Sargent is a top wildlife outdoor photographer in the eastern United States. See more:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/M.SargentPhotography
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/msargentphoto
Blog: http://msargentphotography.wordpress.com

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I also didn’t have a model with experience or the patience for me to go through multiple lighting adjustments. Go figure. The image of my daughter with makeup was setup in window sunlight. No other light source was used on my model. I applied all the makeup (I am no makeup artist either, so had to have some fun with this one) and no digital manipulation of color was used. The photo was taken with a Nikon D90 in RAW. The settings included:

Exposure 0.004 sec (1/250)
Aperture f/8.0
Focal Length 105 mm
ISO Speed 200

The image was imported into Lightroom 3.6. I cropped the image in tight and added more exposure (+4) because I wanted the blown out white effect. From there, I softened the harsh light with an adjustment brush , reduced tint, and also added some minor saturation to the eye color and dramatically reduced temperature (original RAW had more skin warmth/yellow), then I did a lot of spot removal because some of the makeup didn’t blend into her skin well. Finally, I reduced the sharpness of her cheeks/nose a touch because I didn’t want to see pores or tiny hairs. Done. Give this a try with various models and makeup. YouTube has a plethora of videos on makeup application to give you some ideas. This process gave me great ideas for more fashion makeup shots using ambient as well as studio lighting.

As an amateur photographer of three years, Joelle Herman loves it all and typically spends a week to a month on a subject.  She also finds that being a part of a local camera club (Frederick Camera Clique) helps in networking, learning and exploring your passion.

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jneo/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/joelleherman
Google+: Joelle Herman Photography

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With great controls comes great responsibilities. Unlike Point & Shoot users who often have the benefit of a Panorama Assist mode, DSLR users have to control everything themselves. This is more work, but allows for greater flexibility while shooting images for a panorama.

The basic principle of capturing a panorama is to ensure utmost consistency between images. This means that focal-length, focus, aperture, ISO, shutter-speed, exposure, white-balance and image parameters all have to match exactly. Other than focal-length, these settings usually have both automatic and manual modes. The key is to lock each setting before shooting. Let’s go over each one:

If you are using a prime lens, then there is nothing to take care of for the focal-length. If you want fewer shots, then zoom out as much as possible. If you zoom in though, more shots will be required but the resulting panorama will have more resolution and can be printed larger. For web use, it rarely matters.

Focus should be set to make sure your subject is entirely in focus. If you are shooting a distant vista, then you can usually go to infinity. Otherwise, you can maximize focus by setting your lens to its hyperfocal distance. Once focus is set, switch to manual (MF) mode. There is usually a slider on the side of the lens or on the camera body next to the lens mount for that.

There are two ways to lock aperture, ISO and shutter-speed. One is to go to Manual mode and set each one yourself. As a general rule, you want a small aperture without going beyond the diffraction limit of your camera, so somewhere between F/11 and F/16 for a recent DSLR. ISO should be kept as low as possible, particularly is shooting from a tripod where camera shake is not an issue. Then, set the shutter-speed to get the right exposure. Take some test shots from the brightest area of your subjects to make sure nothing will be blown out.

The automatic way is to point the camera at the brightest area in the scene and press the AE-L button to lock exposure. Depending on your camera and how it is configured, you may have to hold that button the whole time or press it once before and once after all images for the panorama are taken.

White-balance is locked by any setting other than Automatic. Ideally, you should use Custom White-Balance which is available on all DSLRs. Kelvin or Preset WB work well too. Image parameters are generally locked except for certain automatic features like Adaptive D-Lighting (ADL) and Dynamic Range Optimizer (DRO) on Nikon and Sony DSLRs, respectively. If your camera supports these, use the menu system to turn them Off.

Once everything is locked as instructed here, your DSLR is ready to capture images for a panorama. Just make sure to keep the camera level and leave plenty of overlap between frames while doing so.

More information on how to create a panorama photo is found at Neopanoramic including panorama software and panoramic photography gear like heads, tripods and leveling bases.

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Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/robbie1/1174623/

Halloween brings the opportunity for many things: candy, chaos, getting the bejezzus scared out of ya…just to name some of the favorites. It also brings some chances for some great photos. Whether you’re taking photos of people in crazy costumes, or creating a reminder of your girlfriend’s “sexy nurse” outfit to put in the folder of goodies you’ve hidden on your hard drive, Halloween brings some interesting (and sometimes aggravating) challenges when it comes to photography. Here are 3 quick tips (more reminders really) to make sure you’re getting some good photos tonight.

Lighting

Lighting is always an issue with photography, but it’s even more important than usual on Halloween. You might be amazed at just how completely NON-scary that creepy zombie looks bathed in the artificially suped-up light of a picture taken with a flash or just how funny the colours end up looking i that photo of the kid covered in glow-sticks. Stick to natural light whenever possible, or at least keep the extra light to a minimum to avoid a serious case of “damn, that looked so much better in the dark”.

White Balance

For the love of all that is unholy and ghoulish, set your white balance properly. It’s hard enough to deal with white balance after the fact on a normal day. On a day when the entire point is to have your senses assaulted with strange costume outfits and colours in a dark environment there is no way to deal with white balance after the fact with any degree of accuracy.

Avoid a Sugar High

Depending on the sort of photos you’re taking, you may need to drop your shutter speed down quite a lot to get a decent photo without destroying the creepy/hilarious/whatever effect. That means you may need to hold the camera more steady than usual, and that could be tough if you’re hopped up on sugar too early. If you plan on getting low shutter speed photos that aren’t blurry as all hell, I’d avoid the candy if I were you. Or, if you’re smart, use a tripod and pig out.

Happy Halloween…and please, if you get some great shots tonight, don’t hesitate to drop some links to them in the comments here. I’d love to see ‘em.

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