The Path, Hudson Valley

I received the following email recently and thought I would share it and some thoughts that occurred to me after reading it…

I am an artist living in Ireland but originally from the Hudson Valley. I was wondering if it would be possible for me to use one of your photographs as a reference photo for a painting I would like to do. I would of course credit you and ad a link to your site as well. Could you let me know if this would be possible. Your photos are amazing! You are a true artist, Thank You…

First, I was deeply honored and humbled that she would want to use one of my images as inspiration for her art, and of course I said yes. But more importantly it reinforced the idea that technology has connected the world in an unprecedented and fantastic way that can serve as inspiration and benefit to us all. Sure there are the negative aspects to any powerful technology, but never in any other time would someone half way around the world be able to find me, connect with me and my work, and then share the results. I’ll share the final piece here when it’s done.

There is also something to be said for sharing and generosity in this age of limitless connections, via social media, the internet, Skype, etc. Your voice and vision is as valid as anyone else’s, your personal experiences unique and worth sharing if you truly have something to say. While it may seem at times that people worry most about privacy issues, there is also the ability and potential to share your vision and creativity in a way that allows the message to truly dictate the exposure. In days past, that was never the case, and your voice would be overpowered by the status quo.

Always on point

New York City is a street photographer’s dream come true with photo ops around every corner. I’m all about maximizing my time when traveling, and lucky for me there’s something to be said for the old adage… in a New York minute. Like most of my trips, I generally have a few images in mind that I plan on capturing, and then leave a bit of free time to allow for things unforeseen. The thing about street photography is you need to be quick to move and always be on the lookout for new photo opportunities. High traffic locations like NYC Central Park are great locations to maximize your time and efforts. In the matter of a few hours I had a chance to shoot a landscape, people, portraits, macro, etc.

Rocks and surf at dawn, Wallis Sands State Park, Rye, New Hampshire. F16, 30 seconds. (Jerry Monkman)

If you live in the northern U.S., you are probably experiencing a low snow winter this year. In Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where I live, we haven't had any appreciable snow since before Halloween! The gray and brown hues of a snowless landscape can definitely make it hard for a landscape photographer to be inspired enough to get out there and shoot. I feel fortunate that I chose his winter to start a new project I call 0630, where I go out every morning and make a picture at 6:30 (you can read more about the project in this post I made over at the Outdoor Photographer website.) The project has forced me to get out and shoot, when I normally would have stayed in bed, and it's really getting my creative juices flowing and giving me good practice on techniques I don't always use on a regular basis. For most of the last 6 weeks, I've been shooting primarily 30-45 minutes before sunrise, so here are some tips on what to do when it's winter, it's dark, and there's no snow.

Last summer I took a three day motorcycle trip throughout southern Utah. I always carry my 5D Mark II, tripod and an assortment of lenses along with my amazing Canon S95, which resides in a pocket in my jacket for easy access. Riding a motorcycle opens your eyes and lets you see things you’d never see in a cage, er…car. You’re not isolated from the environment in a neat little cocoon – you’re in it, surrounded by it, part of it. When it’s hot, you’re hot. When it’s raining, you’re wet. You feel the wind and the heat and the sand in your teeth. It’s an experience unlike any other.

Making images with the 5D Mark II requires digging it out of the tankbag, taking off gloves and helmet, finding a place to safely park the bike and the whole process requires more time and effort than I’m usually willing to expend. All this means I end up using the S95 90% of the time. Such is the case with the photo above.

Casscade Mtn, Adirondacks

Cascade Mtn fails on several levels, but mostly for me it lacks a clear path for the viewers eye to travel, which translates to a weak story. A lack of textural contrast makes the image rather busy, and the light in the background competes with the details in the foreground. I was experimenting with trying to omit the sky and horizon in order to create a lack of perspective, but it didn’t quite work out as envisioned.

As a workshop instructor, I work hard on trying to help students get beyond whatever is limiting their potential. Unfortunately the majority of reasons are due to mistakes and less often to failures. My goal is to reverse this and promote failure as a way to learning. Certainly I don’t want students strictly to fail as that would be rather frustrating and demoralizing in the long run. Who wants to come away from a workshop having only failed at their attempts?

 

The barn at Elmwood Farm in Hopkinton, Massachusetts.

Today I'm working on one of the dozen or so one-day conservation photo projects I get to work on every year. I'm shooting at a small, old family farm in Massachusetts that is in the process of being conserved both for the open space and to provide some community garden opportunities. Like I have to do for many of these projects, I drove about two hours in the dark this morning to arrive at the farm about 20 minutes before sunrise. It's not an ideal way to shoot, especially when you've never seen the place, whether in person or in photographs, but I love this kind of challenge and I think these types of photo projects have made me a better photographer.

 

Milkweed pod at Elmwood Farm in Hopkinton, Massachusetts.

I'm blessed to have the opportunity to shoot in some of New England's most iconic locations several times a year. Places like Acadia, the White Mountains, and Vermont. While I love shooting in these spots, it's easy to get lazy and just shoot the same dramatic landscapes that look good from year to year. However, shooting in a less impressive location like where I was this morning makes me work a lot harder and faster. I literally had about 10 minutes to take a quick look around, and then I had to start shooting (heck, today I wasn't even sure I was in the right place.) This place definitely isn't as dramatic as Monument Cove in Acadia or the summit of Mount Monroe in the White Mountains, so it takes some effort to quickly surmise the scene, break it down into those few elements that I feel define it, and then find a simple composition that works with the light at hand.

This image taken from top of Brandywine Falls in Cuyahoga National Park. We arrived just before sunrise, and Varina used a wide angle lens to capture the color in the sky before it faded. She bracketed the shot in order to capture the entire dynamic range, and then used our manual iHDR technique to combine three images.

Overcast skies are common this time of year, and they provide soft, even lighting – which is ideal for back-lighting fall leaves. Soft directional lighting lets the leaves glow without leaving them overexposed. Jay took this photograph off-trail at Liberty Park.

While enjoying the fall colors, don’t forget to notice the small details. Varina found these pretty leaves beside the trail. She stacked them to show the brilliant hues side by side. If you are shooting small details in bright sun, use a diffuser to soften the light.

Day one of the Mt.Rainier workshop that I am co-leading with DPE podcast co-host Juan Pons was spectacular. Here are a few of my shots - and a few tips.

Above: Expose for the highlights. Move the histogram to the right - but make sure you don't have spike on the right. Also, get up super early to capture the sunrise. You can rest when you are dead. :-)

I was shooting ice abstracts on Stony Creek Lake, and found this outline of a ducks head in the ice.

I saw this face, two eyes and a nose in a flowing river. Some say the nose could be a trunk of an elephant.

After reading a thread in the Flickr Strobist group about a shot of two iPhones done by photographer Peter Belanger, I decided to see if I could recreate his photo, but instead of using studio equipment, I wanted to see if I could get similar results using just a single speedlight and reflectors.

I decided to light the phones from the back (as I often do with food photography) and use reflectors to the sides and to the front to throw subtle fill/highlights back on the phones. So for my keylight, I used an SB-800 in a 24" softbox almost directly behind the phones and at about a 45 degree angle. This might seem like nowhere near the size of the light source that the photographer used in the video, but a 24" softbox used in close to the phones appears to the phones as a HUGE light source which created a nice soft light. I triggered that flash with my D300's on camera pop-up flash.

Next I added my fill lights (or fill sources). Since my softbox was so close to the phones and I was shooting on a piece of white foam core, which is relatively reflective, all I needed to do was add a few more pieces of white foam core around the phone which would reflect the light from the softbox back on to the phone. I simply added these to both sides and held one in front below the camera lens.

To get the right amount of light I wanted from the reflectors, I simply took a shot, chimped a little, then moved the reflectors either closer or further away.

You can see in the setup photo (click on it for a larger view), my position of the reflectors except for the one in front. I was holding it, so I had to put down to shoot the setup folder. Also, I almost never shoot on a tripod but when doing product photography, I've that its really useful to use a tripod so you can keep the same framing, then adjust your subject(s) as necessary.

I generally shoot lots of images – but as I shoot, I delete the ones that aren’t worth keeping. Let me walk you through a typical morning shoot.

I’m up bright and early, ready to shoot. Here I am at Graveyard Flats in Banff National Park (Alberta, Canada). Lovely mist is rising, and the world looks positively blue. The sun isn’t up yet, so I set up my camera for a long exposure. I take my first shot… maybe it’s a little underexposed, so I take another to correct the damage. I will compare the two images, and then delete one of them. I might take another shot or two from a different angle. But each time I shoot, I compare the tiny image on my monitor, check the histogram, maybe even zoom in to check the focus… and delete any image that isn’t quite right. When I get home, I choose the one that looks the best and delete the others after I’ve processed. (ISO 100, 20 seconds at f/7.1)

The light changes as the sun nears the horizon, and I want a shot that shows the strange landscape surrounding the lake. So, I set up my tripod for another shot. I follow the same steps, and I’ll pay close attention to my histogram. I need to make sure that I’m capturing the entire range of light as the sky gets brighter… and that my shadows aren’t too dark. The histogram shows me that I need just one image for this photo – but I take two anyway… one a little brighter than the other, just to make sure. In the end, I don’t need that brighter shot, so after processing, I delete it.