At the zoo

A zoo is not the ideal place for animal photography. Of course, given the cost of a safari to Africa, they're the next best alternative for me.

Most zoos are designed for the living space of the creatures (at least the newer or recently refurbished ones are). The best ones integrate an "up close and personal" viewing experience. But even those don't seem to take into account the needs of photography. Glass with all manner of glare and reflections, wire mesh barriers, and living areas that, while they provide lots of room for the inhabitants, also increase the distance from the camera, making life challenging for a photographer.Here are some tips on how I do things at the zoo.

Zoom, baby. At a minimum, I have a 200mm lens on at all times. I also use a 2x teleconverter to double the zoom. The tradeoff -- an exposure that's slow as molasses. The teleconverter takes away a stop of light from an already sluggish lens. This lion was shot at ISO 800 at an exposure of 1/1250 at a "wide open" effective f-stop of f8. This was OK for animals in the early morning sunlight. Animals in the shadows, not so much. The benefits -- you can get some great "in your face" shots that help disguise the fact that you were shooting in an artificial environment. You also can shoot right through mesh barriers without them registering in your shot. This lion was shot through a series of thin vertical wires separating people from big cats at a viewing station. Just be sure you're shooting through an area of mesh that is not in direct sunlight. You also have a better chance of avoiding reflections when shooting through glass when you use a long lens.

Patience is a virtue. Zoo animals have all the time in the world. You necessarily don't. But spend some time watching the critters. You might pick up a pattern of movement that you can use to your advantage. I watched a pair of lions pacing and positioned myself to catch them as they made their turns. I caught the young male above as he turned his head in advance of his body, making him apear as if he might be roaring or at least belting out his favorite song.

I also observe the rule of shooting early or late in the day. If I have to be there in the middle of the day, I'll try to catch animals in shady areas to avoid harsh shadows and the bluish light of the midday sun. I'll also change my white balance to "flash" or "cloudy" to warm up the tones in my shots.

Got your own zoo tips? Successes? Failures? Let me know.

Crash! Bang! Boom! 8 Tips for better fireworks photography

The Fourth of July means fireworks here in the U.S. Fireworks means a chance to pack up the family for some visual and audio stimulation. Fireworks also provides an opportunity to capture some truly stunning photographs.

Here are a few tips to elicit “oohs and ahhs” long after the fireworks display is over:

1. Set your camera’s zoom to the widest setting to ensure you capture plenty of colorful bursts. You can always crop your pictures later.

2. If you can, set your focus manually to infinity. On many cameras, the autofocus mechanism will not work properly in the dark, or will work too slowly to capture a fast-moving fireworks display.

3. Fireworks happen in the dark (duh), so you’ll need long exposures to capture the action. Use a tripod to avoid blurred pictures. A small flashlight can help you see to maneuver through your camera’s settings in the dark.

4. If your digital camera has a Fireworks mode, it will take care of the settings for you.

5. If you’re shooting film or don’t have a Fireworks mode, try this – manually set your camera to ISO 200, aperture f/8 and choose a shutter speed of about 4 seconds for starters. In the middle of the fireworks display, this setting will capture two or three bursts. Longer exposures will capture more bursts. A second or two is all you’ll need to catch the action during the finale, when the explosions come fast and furious.

6. As the display begins, adjust your tripod to aim the camera to where most of the action is occurring in the sky. You’ll most likely have to make adjustments throughout the show, so be familiar with your tripod’s controls.

7. Try to include some of the surrounding scenery in your photo. The fireworks will beautifully light up the park, stadium, lakeshore or whatever spot from which you are viewing the display.

8. Shoot often! A hundred shots may yield only a handful of keepers. But those spectacular shots will be picture perfect for sharing with friends and family.

Photographs © 2009 James Jordan.

Photographing water on the move

Take your shots of creeks, waterfalls and surf to a higher level by slowing down your exposure time. Digicamhelp, a web site for digital photography beginners (and beyond) is featuring an article I wrote that gives tips on how to get that misty, dreamy quality in your water shots. Check it out.

Making your own luck

If you've been following my series on post-processing digital images, you might be interested in a recent blog post by professional children's photographer Kelly Ferreira. She walks through her thought process while photographing her two daughters, and provides plenty of examples and before-and-after shots along the way.

Embracing the 'burbs

I recently read a post on an online photography forum where the poster bemoaned the fact that she lives in a suburban area and therefore, her opportunities for nature shots was drastically limited. I live in a suburban area myself and can understand her frustration to a point. I’ve struggled to maintain my love for nature photos while surrounded by houses and trees that obscure 60% of the sky or more.

But you know what? Nature is everywhere. If you can’t find it, you’re not looking hard enough. If you’re suburb-bound, here are some idea starters to try:

Start in your own backyard. Got plants, trees, flowers and critters? Good. Shoot ‘em. Isolate them from the suburban-ness around them by getting in close, blurring the background by narrowing your depth of field or contriving a background. Shoot upward, as in the example to the right. Shoot downward.

Got parks? Great. Explore them. Only got one or two? Get out to them in different seasons, different times of the day, different types of weather. I return to the same parks in my area on a regular basis.

Make the suburban-ness work for you. Show nature and suburb together. In harmony. Or at odds. Look for drama. Look for tranquility. Look for different moods.

I’ve published about 2,000 photos online on my photo blog and at Flickr and I would guess that as many as 80 percent of my photos were taken in suburban Chicago. Yes, I love vast unspoiled vistas and exotic locales, but the reality is that I am where I am and to pursue my hobby of photography, I must make the best of the situation.

A tip for close up shots - back off!

The natural inclination is to shoot a closeup of an object from, well ... close up. For this shot, I stepped back several yards and used a telephoto lens to bring the object to me. This changes the viewing perspective ever so slightly and can result in a shot that is a bit different than what we may be used to seeing and may compel a viewer to stick with it a bit longer than they would have otherwise. It may not work every time, but it's worth playing with as you're out shooting.

Photograph © 2008 James Jordan.

Dominant elements

St. Mary's Cemetery, Dekalb, IL
Originally uploaded by James Jordan.

I studied art in college under a gentleman named Harry Worst, a landscape painter who created his compositions in the studio, then would go into the field to find references for the details in his paintings. Harry preached two ideas to the fledgling artists in his flock. One was to build three distinct zones - foreground, middle ground and background - to establish depth. The other was to create a dominant element - one that commanded attention - with all other elements subordinate to it.

Your photographic compositions will benefit from the same advice. I've previously posted about building depth in your photos. Think of the dominant element as the "star" of your photograph and look for ways to make your star grab the attention of your viewer.

One way is to make your star physically larger than all other elements, as I've done with this tree in a cemetery. Another way is to set it apart is by framing it with other elements, as I've done with the lighthouse in the second photo. The monochrome of the woods and foreground shadows frame the sunlit area in which the lighthouse sits, drawing the viewer's eye. the lighthouse also sits on a diagonal line from top right to bottom left - placing your subject on either of the diagonals of a photo will naturally draw the eye of the viewer.

Click on pictures to enlarge. Photos © 2007 James Jordan.

Embrace the V

Robinson crusoe dream place!!
Originally uploaded by nicolas valentin.

In yesterday’s post I talked about a theory of composition that I’m forming. If you draw an imaginary line from any corner of your photo to its opposite corner, placing your subject or main item of focus anywhere on that diagonal line will result in a good composition. Go to a photo web site like Flickr, look around and you’ll be surprised at how often you see this in use.

I’m also seeing a lot of compositions that takes advantage of the “V” formed by intersecting the diagonal lines. A lot of photographs, like the one above, nestle their subjects into the crook of one of the “Vs,” again resulting in pleasing compositions. (See smaller diagram.)

With these two practices in mind, along with the good old rule of thirds, you have three weapons in your compositional arsenal. Now get out there and fire away!

Photo: Robinson Crusoe dream place uploaded by Nicolas Valentin to Flickr. Click on pictures to enlarge.

Bonus shot: The subject of this photo occupies a different "V." Check it out.

Keeping it simple: Composition

A photographer with whom I had the privilege of working when I was a photo buyer had a slogan, “Simple pictures are best.” His pictures were indeed simple and among some of the best I’ve ever seen. I’ve tried to put his philosophy into practice since seriously taking up the hobby of photography eight years ago.

There are two sides to photographic simplicity. There’s the simplicity (or lack of it) in the final image that’s created. Then there’s the simplicity of thought that goes on behind the lens as the picture is being created. I believe the two are related. I’ve studied some complex photographic theories and tried to boil them down to a few simple basics that I regularly use in making pictures, and those are the things I share here at Ready, Aim, Click.

So here’s a simplification of some complex theories of composition. I’ll admit that this is brand new thinking on my part, and I have not had a chance to fully field test it, but count on it that I will.

The rules of composition are based on the golden mean, a classic school of thought based on mathematically-based subdivisions of space that create visually appealing patterns and designs. That’s the complex part. Here’s my simplification: If you draw a diagonal line from any corner of a photograph to its opposite corner, placing your main subject anywhere on that diagonal line will result in a pleasing composition. This assumes that your background is fairly simple and that it’s quite obvious what your subject is.

The large photo at the top has our subject floating on a diagonal line from the top left to bottom right of the frame. The smaller photos are crops that place our subject on various spots on the diagonal lines. The third introduces additional subjects on the opposing diagonal, which opens up other possibilities. Each change in placement creates subtle shifts in meaning for each photo; try framing up several possibilities the next time you're shooting, then decide which one works best for you.

Like I said, I plan to play with this idea and will post some results here in the near future. And I’m not declaring the rule of thirds null and void.

Yet.

Photos © 2007 James Jordan. Click on pictures to enlarge.

Shooting into the sun

After I had reviewed one of Roger’s photos and fixed it in a prior post here, he mentioned that he imagined that it would be possible to get some interesting photos by shooting into the sun and not sticking to the maxim of shooting with the sun over one’s shoulder all the time.

The answer is a qualified yes. You can get some very interesting photos while shooting into the sun, but you have to keep several things in mind when you do so:

Shooting into the sun will mess up your automatic exposure big time, and you must compensate. Don’t shoot into the sun unless you have an extremely interesting shape to silhouette against the sky. If you want any detail at all in the object against the sun, you either need a flash or a special filter.

Compensating your exposure When the sun is going to be a major part of one of my photos, I’ll take a meter reading of the sky above the sun with the sun just out of the frame. This generally gives an accurate portrayal of the sky and will create a solid silhouette of whatever else is in the frame. The exception is when shooting flowers and foliage, which are translucent and glow beautifully when backlit. (Top photo) Any time you are using the sun to backlight a photo, whether it's in the photo or not, an exposure value (EV) of +2 is called for.

Interesting silhouette If you're going for a silhouette, it has to be very recognizable and interesting. It needs to be just as obvious to the viewer of your photo as it was to you. Keep it as simple as possible. (Second photo) Try positioning your subject directly over the orb of the sun for interesting effects (Top and bottom photos).

Want detail? If you’re close enough to the silhouetted object to use your flash, do so. But remember, too much flash will give your photo a “faked” look and too little flash will leave your subject in the dark. Improve your odds by using the portrait setting of your digital camera if it has one. Bracket your shots (shoot a picture each at one f-stop above and below your metered setting) if you are using a manual flash. (Third photo) You can also use a sheet of white poster board or foam board to reflect light back onto the subject.

If your subject is too far for flash, another option is the use of a graduated neutral density filter, if your camera is able to accept filters. A grad ND filter is dark on about a third of the filter’s surface and gradually fades to clear at about the halfway point. Positioning the dark side of the filter over the sky allows you to open your f-stop by up to four stops (depending on the strength of the filter) to give more exposure to objects on the ground. (Second and bottom photos were shot using graduated neutral density filters)

Most of all, experiment and have fun.

Click on pictures to enlarge. Photographs © 2007 James Jordan.

A word about Digital Zoom

For those of you who own a digital point-and-shoot camera: Digital zoom is a marketing gimmick and nothing remotely useful for photographic purposes. Do. Not. Ever. Use. It.

Stick with optical zoom. Optical zoom records everything that can be captured by the lens itself. Once you go beyond the optical range into digital zoom, the camera begins to split pixels in an effort to digitally enlarge the largest image afforded by the lens. The farther you go into the digital zoom range, the lower the quality of the image.

If you’re trying to capture a picture of Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, a flying saucer or Elvis, I can perhaps see a use for digital zoom. Otherwise, stick to digital zoom.

You'll thank me later. That is, unless you run into Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, a flying saucer or Elvis.

Troubleshooting: Lost lighthouse

A friend submitted this photo for a critique and to see if anything could be done to improve it. This is the Crisp Point Lighthouse near Paradise, Michigan on the south shore of Lake Superior. Judging from the shadows, this was probably taken in the early afternoon. The sunlight is quite harsh at midday, and it is always better to try to take outdoor photos in early morning or late afternoon. The light is softer and warmer at those times of day. I know it’s difficult when traveling to make accommodations for early morning or late afternoon shooting, but it’s always worth the effort as far as photos go (this particular lighthouse is way off the beaten path, so you have you take what you get, conditions-wise). My family has come to the understanding that when we’re traveling, dad is going to be out early in the morning and late in the afternoon into early evening taking pictures. The rest of the day is for accompanying the family to shopping or other activities.

But back to the picture at hand. My friend knows enough about composition to put the main subject, the lighthouse, in one of the outer third corners of the picture, but he still came away with the feeling that something may be off. To me, the biggest problem is that the lighthouse seems to be lost in the trees. While my friend established a foreground, middle ground and background in his picture, the trees in the middle ground, through the visual magic of perspective, seem to be as tall as the lighthouse and compete for attention with the tower. So the first order of business is to explore some cropping options to try to isolate the tower and minimize the distraction of the trees.

I explored both a horizontal and vertical crop. I focused on getting the large tree at the left of the picture just out of the frame, keeping as much of the horizon of the lake as possible and minimizing the tall thin pine tree to the right of the tower. I then moved the vertical crop up and down to see if I liked it better with more sky or more foreground foliage. Personally, I prefer the crop with the foliage on the dune, but you can go either way.

A little darkening of the middle tones and a slight boost in color saturation in PhotoShop rounded out my adjustments of the picture. The lighthouse now stands as the undisputed focal point of the photo. By the way, my friend has more photos and some thought-provoking posts at his blog. Check it out.

Do you have a picture you would like critiqued or fixed? Send me an email at jjrdns6[at]aol[dot]com and write "Troubleshooting" in the subject line.

Click on pictures to enlarge.

Add depth to your thinking

Tranquility
Originally uploaded by James Jordan.

I took a landscape watercolor painting class while studying art in college. The instructor was the stereotypical artist – white hair, goatee, elegant dresser. As we developed our compositions in class, he walked from easel to easel repeating his mantra, “Foreground, middle ground, background … foreground, middle ground, background.”

It was his way of drilling into us the discipline of creating depth by including details from near to far. Too often, beginning landscape photographers focus on the beautiful background in their pictures. If any middle ground detail makes it into their pictures, it’s a happy accident, and foreground is rarely given any thought. The results are rather flat-looking pictures.

The next time you are composing a picture, try to highlight all three zones – foreground, middle ground and background. And this isn't just for landscapes. When I take snapshots of family, I still pay attention to the three zones - it helps establish a sense of place while adding depth to the picture. I shoot the largest percentage of my photos at a wide angle setting, which helps accentuate depth.

Establishing three distinct zones in a photo is tougher than it sounds, and it takes some practice to become consistent at it, but it makes for more interesting photos.

Click on pictures to enlarge. Photographs © 2007 James Jordan.

Going deeper: The power of diagonal lines

Dusk at South Haven pier
Originally uploaded by James Jordan.

Photographs are two-dimensional images (or at least they will be until they come up with a way to make cheap holograms!). As such, a challenge for photographers is instilling a 3-dimensional quality to their pictures. There are several ways to build depth into a photo. One of the easiest ways is to look for diagonal lines. The eye is trained to interpret diagonal lines as receding into the distance (think railroad tracks or a line of light poles by the side of the road). Any time you can work diagonal lines into a photo, do so. Even better is making the diagonal lines lead to the focal point of the picture.

In the examples here, the converging diagonal lines of the pier and catwalk give the impression of depth (a bonus is the two fishermen framed in the support of the catwalk – a third fisherman is framed further down the pier). In the second photo, the alternating diagonals of the winding walkway emphasize depth.

Now, go out there and get crooked!

Photos © 2006 James Jordan. Click on pictures to enlarge.

Bringing interest to the obligatory “we were there” pictures

You know the ones. You visit the mountains or the rocky beach or the untamed wilderness and you line up everyone to stand in a group to look straight into the camera with whatever gorgeous scenery you can still squeeze into the frame behind them. The result is usually a little too much of each (loved ones and scenery) and not enough of either.

When traveling, I’ll usually take one of the above-mentioned shots just to make those who insist on that type of thing happy. Then I’ll go to work creating an environmental portrait of each person who came along. We didn’t come to the place to stand in front of it; we came to see it, to experience it, to interact with it. So that’s the way I want to depict us. I will take candid or loosely posed pictures of people interacting with the environment, not standing stock-still in front of it.

I’ll take photos that show more environment than person, then switch to show more person than environment, leaving just enough clues as to where we were. I also follow some of the other tips I've mentioned on this blog (change your altitude, get out of the center, etc.). What I’ll wind up with is a good variety of interesting shots that then become excellent fodder for scrapbooking (for my wife), or in my case, photo blogging.

These are some photos of the ladies in my life (wife and daughters) along the Lake Michigan shoreline in northern Wisconsin. They give a good sense of the places we visited as well as the special people in my life who visited there. And they're a lot more interesting than if they had stood stock-still in front of the camera.

Photographs © 2007 James Jordan. Click on pictures to enlarge.