So, some of you know that I am a fan of Woody Allen stuff. In fact, I just finished his audiobook from Audible… there were some funny bits in it.
I have a few favorite Woody Allen movies — what are yours? This title comes from Love & War. It was kind of slap-sticky, but there were some super-funny scenes in there. At the end, they start talking about “wheat”, and it reminded me of these horses.
Daily Photo: Wheat Horses
This HDR is from a single RAW file, as about 20-30% of my photos are. If you look in the free HDR Tutorial here on the site, you can see page 3 talks a bit about how to do this. It’s quite easy!
Before, I talked about my desire to try to get off the main highway in Iceland. But when you have cool horses like this lining up along the highway, it’s hard to find a reason to get off!
I don’t always like to use a flash when taking photos of horses because I think it scares the animals. I prefer just to shoot wide-open with natural light and see what I can recover later with the HDR process.
In this case, these two horses were playing with one another, weaving their heads and necks together in a little dance. I stood there with my camera, trying not to intrude on their private horse-moment, when they stopped for a quick second in this pose.
Mine, in order are: Sunset, sunrise, dusk, night, day… What are yours? Exactly the same or a little different?
Daily Photo – The Allure of Night-Shooting
Of course, taking photos at night in cool cities is awesome. But the bad thing (if there is such a thing) is that there is never really a good time to stop. It could go on all night! It’s not like sunset or dusk that has a fairly limited shooting time…
So, usually I am really awful in these situations and just keep shooting until my body physically gives out. It’s always so easy just to jump in a taxi and head back to the hotel… so it’s hard to come up with a big reason to stop. Everything is so stimulating!
This one was taken very close to my time-lapse sequence that was part of that Japanese video I released. If I found a good place for a photo, then it was also a good spot for a time-lapse. Those are cool and everything, but they do tie up the camera for a long time and inhibit the HDRs!
When I called for some assistants here on the blog to help me out in China, I did not expect so many people to contact me! Thanks again for all the emails. I’m not sure I was able to contact everyone back, but I did my best. I ended up with a great gentlemen who was already at the airport with a driver holding my name card! His name is Woo and he’s studying international relations. His English accent is extremely-proper British, so it’s a bit like having a non-stop Jeremy Irons voiceover. He’s been great… even though I think I am wearing him out.
Daily Photo – Bustling Beijing
Getting this photo was not easy at all!
I knew of this area of Beijing called the CBD, or Central Business District. I notice that they have all these catchy names here, much like the building I took this photo from: “China Merchants Building.” At any rate, I had the driver circle the business district a few times so I could find a good angle. We found one in this building, but did not know if we could take a photo from the top floor. Woo went in first. This might have been a mistake because during the shoot he admitted he had a dreadful fear of heights. But he said it in such a charming British accent I thought it could have been my subconscious.
We went up to the 32nd floor. No windows no dice. We then went to the 31st floor, but the confused secretary would not let us through. Then we tried 30. The secretary said yes and let us into a boardroom, but the angle was not right and the other offices were busy. So we went to 29.
The secretary on 29 was confused so I instructed Woo to tell her, firmly, “We are with the Government.”
After that, we rushed in to set up, since the light was fading. People in the office were having some sort of light party at the end of the workday and were very confused by our presence. While I was setting up, Woo gave them the full story about how this was for an organization that had approval from the government and we were trying to get a fun shot of the city, etc etc. And then he pulled out my iPad to show the managers some of my work. Then they all got excited and came over to get their photos taken with me. All of that was fine and well, but I had to convince them to stop doing that and turn off all the lights because the reflections were killing me.
I continually get good questions like, “How do you take photos without people in them???” And then, even better, many people in the community respond for me, telling others how I do it! That’s great… I really enjoy when you guys talk to one another, post links to show examples, and all this sort of thing.
Are you the silent reader type? Don’t be! We want to hear your thoughts and questions!
Anyway, to answer this perennial one, there are many ways. But, in this case, I took the HDR in Aperture priority mode at ISO 50 and f/22. By forcing these two, it made the shutter speed extra-long. When the shutter is open a long time, people that are walking by do not even cast enough light to make any long-term difference on the sensor. Does this make sense? Maybe experiment a little and you will see what I mean.
Daily Photo – Old Forest After the Snowmelt
On another one of those painful mornings, I woke up early to explore all around Nikko. Some snow had fallen during the night, and a warm morning sun helped to melt everything into reflective wet surface. It also helped the leaves and bark to glow in an inviting way. There are many beautiful old areas of Nikko that are separated by these long pathways through the forest. It’s right out of a Final Fantasy game, and I could not help but stop every few hundred feet for another photo!
These little finds are everywhere! Sometimes, while stumbling around from alleyway to alleyway, I appear right in the middle of these perfect little scenes.
It was very close to the National Day, and crews were out freshening-up the city. There were about four Chinese painters that were busy putting a fresh red coat of paint on this perfect little bridge. By chance, they were just finishing up as I approached. This little boat from the painters was pulled up beside the bridge in a wonderful way, so I set up my tripod along the bank for a photo.
They all looked at me in a confused way. They had no idea why I would want to take a photo of their little boat and the bridge. I imagine they find this so commonplace as to be hardly worthy of a photo… and it makes me wonder about all the non-photographers (or fans of this site) out there. Perhaps they just go through life and don’t even notice anything interesting pretty and nicely composed. What an empty visual life this must be!
On October 11th, I’ll be heading over to the Google China offices in Beijing to give a talk on art, photography, HDR, and everything in between. If you’re part of the Google team here in China, then I look forward to meeting you! 🙂
If you missed my first Google Talk at their HQ in California, just follow that link.
Daily Photo – A Lonely Night in Iceland
I was in the southern area of Iceland, only a few kilometers from the big volcano eruption. There was still a bit of ash scattered around, and I was driving down random side-roads. I made a deal with myself that I would randomly take exits off the main highway to see what I could find. This was one of those occasions.
On the way back to the highway, I saw new things. It’s hard to have a 360-degree sense of all compositions while driving. Usually my viewing cone is fully stimulated at 180 degrees while moving forward! So, moving back and forth along roads sometimes provides surprises.
I had just spent a few hours around midnight on a black-sand volcanic beach on the shore. I was the only one there, as usual. It’s very creepy, in a way, being on a gigantic black beach in the middle of the night without another car or human anywhere in sight. And I know that it is even beyond my sight for a long way because I had not seen anyone on the drive there. I listened to music and took photos all the while, of course. And on the way back, I saw this tiny lit church against some distant mountains, so I popped out for another shot.
Have you seen my SmugMug Review? I have something new to report about China – It works here! I’m still here in China, making daily updates to the blog.
Flickr is blocked here, so if I still linked my photos there, the blog would look rather boring. Now, when I meet with people here, I can easily show them everything, and it essentially opens up the blog to several hundred million more people. That’s great… and not something I really thought about before switching my main party affiliation to SmugMug.
Daily Photo – The Nikko Waterfall from Afar
I’ve been pretty lame, frankly, in finishing up my Nikon 18-200 Review. But, this is a photo that I took with that lens when I was in Japan. I wanted to show the vast range of the lens, and this is the “zoomed out” view. In coming weeks, I’ll post the “zoomed in” view, so you can see the tremendous range. Yes, it’s a cropped lens so I can’t use my full-frame, but it’s not really the end of the world. It’s light, cheap, and very flexible… these are some nice plusses!
I had never gotten to a waterfall in such a unique way! I started at the top of this thing and took an elevator DOWN, hundreds of feet. I then went through about a quarter-mile of caves to emerge at the bottom, where I got this perspective. It was really unique and messed with my whole sense of location. I’m so used to taking the elevator “up” to get somewhere interesting. I had to put on my earphones to listen to some unique music to get my bearings back before shooting this photo.
When I was in Iceland with Rebekka, she set up for one of these long-bulb jobs. There was a light rain and a few drops kept getting on her lens, and the frustration ended with a wholesale slaughter of all nearby mountain-elves.
She’s gotten over it and recently posted an article on Long-Exposure Photography over at Pixiq. Follow that link to see more of her work!
Daily Photo – The Private Library
Here we are again, continuing the Hearst Castle thread. We have so many threaded stories here, yes? It’s a bit like Lost, in that there are so many story-lines that never really get resolved. Maybe at the end, we’ll all end up in a generic church together, staring at a white light out of the doors as the camera pans up and away…
There are a few libraries inside Hearst Castle, and this is the biggest. I’ve always wanted something a little like this. Maybe it doesn’t have to be quite this large, but I’d settle for a few warm shelves full of books, a reading table, and a few servants to bring me coffee.
It’s such a small world! I was standing at this very spot below when my friend Gernot walked up and said hello! I first met Gernot at my workshop in Tokyo, and he had flown in from Shanghai. He’s an Austrian that’s been living and working in China for the past few years. In fact, besides other things, he’s just started giving motorcycle sidecar tours of the city. He’s trying to convince me to do it here in Beijing… and I’m not sure i have the time but will try!
The Forbidden City sits in the middle of Beijing along an imaginary line called “The Central Axis”. Many of the important buildings, temples, and monuments are along this line. It might seem convenient just to walk along this line to see everything you need to see, but this idea only works if you have the mobility of the Genghis Khan cavalry.
I had a delightful tea inside the Forbidden City at a secluded and secret tea house with my contacts. It all sounds somewhat cloak & dagger, doesn’t it? But this ancient tea house was so hard to find that Google Maps street view would have just shown a black starfield instead. There was a tiny and old looking building in an aged arched alleyway that had a long line of antique windows. Upon pushing on one of the windows in a certain direction, you would suddenly discover it was a door that would open into another set of richly decorated rooms. There were rich wood surfaces everywhere, each full of antiques, ornate bowls, delicate tea service, and Chinese women clad in traditional garb running about whilst preparing tea in the old way.
After spending a few hours in here getting lost and having tea, I emerged around sunset to move around the fortress area. Arriving at the corner tower just in time (and with my slight Chinese assistant buckling under the pressure of my Lowepro), I snapped off this HDR of the setting sun.
I’ve been talking about this for a long time, so I wanted to go ahead and give you some free tips for on-the-street people photography.
From various conversations, I think that photographers are REALLY interested in taking photos of people they see on the street. We can’t help it, right? Our eyes are drawn to interesting “things” — not just landscapes. And if we see an interesting person, we really want to take their photo, yes? But then, often times, we don’t even pull the camera up to our eye because we are shy, embarrassed, or think about all the horrible things that could go wrong. So, maybe these tips will help!
Look, honestly, I don’t know if these will do you any good or not. But these are some things that I personally think about. So, insofar as some of my insights are useful to me, maybe they will be useful to you too!
Even though I’m known for “landscape photography”, I actually enjoy all kinds of photography! I take hundreds of people photos, object photos, food photos, model photos, B&W photos, etc. I assume that you take many types of photography too.
1) If you prefer to take photos of people as they are acting naturally, go ahead and take the photo before they notice you. You are a photographer, and this is you. You capture life… if you see something interesting whether it is a landscape, a pile of peaches, or a person that strikes your fancy, go ahead and do it. If you like and it is convenient, you can always go show them the photo after you are done. I do this whenever it makes sense, and I have a nice little interchange with the person.
2) Keep an extra camera ready for people shots. When walking the streets, I normally have my “big” camera ready to go for city landscape shots. My tripod is on. My wide-angle is on. It’s in that “mode.” If I am going to have to switch lenses, it will take forever, and the moment will be lost. So, I carry a second camera on a sling around my shoulder for people shots. On that camera, I have an 85mm or 50mm prime lens. Now, you don’t have to have this exact setup by any means, but having ANY kind of second camera for people shots is recommended.
2b) I find that the 85mm prime keeps me outside something I call the radius of intimacy. That is, when you use a 50mm, you are so close that people often stop acting naturally, unless they are a professional model or a natural thespian.
3) If they ARE likely to notice you, be confident and deliberate, softly asking permission with your eyes. This is a very subtle and hard thing to explain. I usually raise my eyebrows while I raise my camera, clearly indicating, “I’m about to take a photo. Everything is okay.” If they don’t want you to, they will make it clear. Usually, they say it’s just fine. People like to be thought of as interesting.
4) If they are very close, I ask permission out loud. Often times, I don’t want them to pose… so I say something (smiling!) like, “You look very interesting — can I take a photo?” Once they say yes (98% of the time they do), I usually ask them not to pose and carry on about their business. Then I start taking a bunch of photos and enjoy the pressure of capturing the moment.
5) Don’t be shy! If you feel overly shy, it may be a larger indication that you are letting fear motivate you rather than the opportunities that life provides. So, if you feel doubt or fear, just try to channel me and be brave and forthright.
Regarding that last one, seriously, folks, just be cool and confident with it. If you want to do it, and it feels right, just do it. Do not worry so much about rejection. Yes, you WILL get rejected 2-10% of the time depending upon how likable you are. Out of 500 people photos, I’ve been rejected maybe 10-13 times. It doesn’t bother me a bit. So what? People say no… big deal. The fact is that MOST people LOVE to have photos taken of them. To be interesting in a world of same-ness is a tremendous thing. Chances are that no one has ever taken a photo of them before, and they will feel special that you thought they were special.
Most of the time, after I take a photo and people look over at me, wondering, “Why did you just take a photo of me?” I usually say, “You look cool!” Or, “You look awesome!” Or, if they don’t speak English, I give them a thumbs up and a facial indication that I think they look cool. 99% of the time, they smile and carry on.
If you’re taking a photo of a kid, just get a steady nod from the parents before. Bend down to take the photo, look up at the parent, saying, “is it okay?” with your eyes. They’ll say yes or no… There is a significant number of moms out there that watch too much sensational news and assume that 50% of the population are pedophiles… but, maybe you’ll hit that other 50%! Again, we’re all just photographers, and if we see a cute or interesting kid, of course we want to take a photo! It’s what we do! There is no need to apologize for it! 🙂
Daily Photo – Salaryman in Tokyo
While I was in the middle of making a time-lapse sequence (see the video below the photo), I was using my D3S on a sling to take quick photos of interesting people. They were everywhere!
Behind me, waiting for the light to change, was this young salaryman. Salaryman is the Japanese word for “businessman”. That word salaryman always cracks me up for some reason. Anyway, he was this young kid, standing there in a most unassuming way in this nice suit. I spun around and grabbed a quick shot.
He looked a little confused at me after I took it. I gave him a nod of thanks, and he smiled in a surprised way then went merrily on his way.
Videos – Life in Japan
While I am busy shooting landscapes and people in Japan, I also take time to make some videos. Below are a few of them from recent past. The music from both is by the great Patrick O’Hearn (buy his stuff!). Enjoy!
