Let's talk about gear

Buying New Gear I: Lenses

It's been a while, and I've promised multiple times to post new content more frequently than every two years... all I can say is, I'm sorry, and I actually have something to write about today. If you keep up with me on social media, you know I had a little incident a couple weeks ago in which my Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 USM II telephoto zoom lens took one for the team. It retails for around $2000, I somehow managed to buy it (eight years ago) for $1500, and the factory repair facility quote $860 to replace the two cracked elements and the broken retaining ring, plus cleaning and lubricating. I'm going to see if a local guy might be able to do it for significantly cheaper, but I'm not holding my breath. So while I've waited for word on my lens's fate, I've been shopping for replacements.

Just for giggles, I checked out a ridiculous lens that seemed to feature a ridiculous price: a 650-1300mm Opteka f/8-16 telephoto zoom (and they sell it with a doubler, so you could effectively have a 1300-2600mm lens!), for $189 on Amazon. Whaaaaaaat??? The more I looked into the details, however, the more I realized why it was so cheap, aside from (I'm sure) relatively cheap components:

It's got massive zoom capability, which seems like a great thing because that's why you bought a massive zoom lens, but realize the more you zoom in on something, the more small movements of the camera are going to affect the stability of the image. Even with a tripod, if you're zoomed all the way in, you can't have any wind or vibration (you'll probably want a shutter release cable) and if you're not using a mirror-less style camera, even the motion of the mirror swinging out of the way to take the picture might introduce too much vibration (so you'll have to be in mirror lock-up mode) And you can pretty much forget tracking a moving subject while zoomed way in, unless it moves less than a mile an hour. So lots of turtle action photography.

It's relatively heavy, at 7 pounds, so lugging it around with the rest of your kit is going to be a chore,

It's 18" long, which means when you're NOT using it, it won't fit into a lot of backpacks, so you're going to have to use it's own carrying case,

With a maximum aperture of f/8, you're either going to have to dial your ISO way up to compensate for its low light-gathering capability or only shoot in really bright sunlight (or possibly both).

So you're going to use this for stationary subjects on a clear, calm day with plenty of bright sunlight, and preferrably under conditions that stay the same long enough for you to futz about with all the settings on your camera to get the shot just right. Not exactly ideal for, say, a wildlife photographer, for instance, whose subject might up and fly away at any second. However, under the right conditions, it might just be the lens you need: I'd bet it would get pretty good moon shots on a clear night, because you're probably going to do long exposures anyway, and you could get some really good detail.

The lesson to be learned here is to think about the kind of photography you want to do, figure out range of focal lengths and general capabilities you want out of your lens, and find the glass that fits your style of photography, your technical needs, and your budget. THEN buy the lens; don't be like the folks reviewing products on Amazon who didn't read the description carefully enough and then complain that the lens is too heavy (it SAYS it's seven pounds, so giving it one star for being exactly as advertised is just silly), or that it takes really dark pictures (i.e. you don't know how to use it correctly or what conditions it's really for) or that it was hard to focus on things because your hands were shaking too much. Caveat emptor, my friends: know what you're buying before you shell out any simoleons.

In my next post, I'll discuss the pros and cons of image stabilization in lenses, whether specialty coatings really make lenses worth 10x more, and how best to care for your glass (first tip is for free: dropping them onto asphalt is not recommended.)

Patreon and On and On

I know, it's been a long while, but I'm reviving the blog for an important reason: Adventures in Art still lives! A few months back, I came to the decision to close Adventures in Art down, because it simply wasn't making any money and wasn't really even getting much attention. When 50% of your annual sales are to your mom, you can't really call it a business (unless  your mom is LOADED, I suppose)

Then I learned about Patreon. Patreon.com is a crowdsourcing site dedicated toward artists seeking ongoing patronage from fans and arts enthusiasts who want to support their work, and is pretty much tailor made for the kind of fundraising I need for Adventures in Art. The big problem with sites like Kickstarter or Indiegogo is that they're intended to raise funds for one big project, so for me it would be a photo book or shooting specifically for a big gallery exhibition or something, neither of which I can promise on any reliable time scale. Patreon allows you to collect donations on an ongoing basis, and all you have to do is continue to provide content, which I'm more than happy to do if I can raise enough to afford to do so; it is the escape clause from my artistic Catch-22 of being unable to afford to get out and shoot, and therefore can't earn enough to take enough time from the day job to go shoot.

So if you've been a fan of my work in the past and just didn't want to shell out the big bucks to purchase any but still would like to help me continue creating more art, please visit my Patreon page, subscribe and commit to a monthly donation (doesn't have to be much, even $1 a month can make a difference over time). Thanks!

https://www.patreon.com/miketakesahike

The Body (Photo)Shop

What are the acceptable limits on the use of Photoshop or other editing software? The true answer is that it depends, and it's much more complicated than saying you should or should not use them in a given situation or to accomplish a limited set of tasks deemed appropriate under all conditions.

It all comes down to a matter of intent and transparency. I am a photographer and digital artist. If it suits me, I have no qualms about adding or subtracting elements from a shot if I think it creates a better image by doing so, but I will always let people know that an image has been digitally altered if it's necessary for them ot know (if I am submitting it for publication or to a contest, for instance). If they don't need to know, or if it's blantantly obvious that the image isn't a depiction of reality, I don't (no, I didn't ask a model to stand next to a wild Alaskan brown bear -- not sure my liability insurance covers mauling specifically)(mental note: ask insurance agent about mauling coverage)

When it comes to portraiture, I try to use Photoshop sparingly. I will obviously use color correction, adjust exposure and contrast, white balance and cropping on every image, regardless of the software I use to do it, because things don't always turn out perfect in camera. Beyond that, it's a case-by-case basis for any deeper edits. Because some of my shoots are in people's homes or in confined or awkward spaces (sometimes one and the same), I have to use the "wall socket and ugly lampshade filter" to remove distracting elements or extend a nice neutral background beyond where it actually existed to remove distracting elements from the scene (landscape photographers refer to this as the "telephone pole filter.") Some poses are visually interesting but tend to cause your skin to pooch out in a somewhat unattractive way, so I will use the Liquify tool to return the model's profile to how it was when standing up straight -- I'm not actually taking off pounds, I'm just making sure the model doesn't look like she's carrying more than she really does.

And you have to realize that in my business, while I'm tasked with making my clients look good, it's about making sure the body they've GOT looks good, not the one our society TELLS her looks good. A lot of people are a bit self-conscious about their appearance, which is why people get their pictures taken so infrequently. Imagine how you'd feel if you screwed up your courage and got photos done, but then discover the photographer has decided you would look better if you were 30-50 pounds lighter and the final images don't really look like you any more. What, I'm not good enough looking, so you have to make me skinnier than I truly am? And you gave me a nose job. And my skull is a different shape, because my cheeks are definitely not way up there.

I believe the photos I take should represent my clients being fabulous RIGHT NOW, rather than what they'd be if they took of twenty pounds or had surgery. It's the little so-called imperfections that make your face interesting. On high school seniors, I'll edit out acne, because that's not who they are, it's just a function of genetics and temporary hormonal surges, and I'll occasionally edit away the neck wattle that might appear because I had asked them to look down and they did so by tilting their whole head rather than with just their eyes. But I'm not going to make a curvy woman into a stick, because it's dismissive of how beautiful she is and it's not necessary to change anything -- if I'm doing my job as a photographer, I don't need to alter anybody, because they're going to look stunning no matter their shape and size.

Reflections on 2013

As I look back on 2013, I am struck by how I've changed as a photographer over time. There was a point not so very long ago when I questioned whether or not I was worthy to call myself a professional, and I was hesitant to dive into uncharted waters or challenge myself with new projects. I told myself that maybe with more training or just more experience, I could think of myself as legit. I was scared to get started on anything new because I tied my notion of success to the number of prints I sold or the dollar value in my bank account at the end of the year, when in truth, an artist must gauge success internally, on the level of satisfaction one feels doing the work.

Of course I want to earn enough to make a living from my photography and quit the day job (who doesn't?), and I'm working on making that a reality, but if I'm really enjoying what I'm doing and I feel like I'm creating something beautiful and worthwhile, then maybe it doesn't matter how much or little I earn in recompense, or even if anybody likes what I do -- ars gratia artis, baby.

There have been some missteps and bad luck along the way, of course (nearly freezing to death while NOT photographing eagles along the Skagit comes to mind), but the things I've seen and learned have mostly been positive, on the whole: rounding a corner to see my first snowy owl in the wild, seeing wild Alaskan brown bears up UNCOMFORTABLY close and personal, meeting new models and creating art together as I branch into more portrait and digital work, and pursuing new business opportunities.

Thus encouraged (with many words of affirmation and several swift kicks in the behind from my ever-patient wife), I look forward to 2014 not with dread or trepidation, but with excitement over what new experiences I may have and in what ways I will learn and grow as an artist and as a human being. My head swims with all the project ideas I have for the future, and I have only to figure out the logistics to make them a reality. If things go the way I plan, I may be a very busy boy in the coming year.

Fear not, nature lovers - I fully intend to continue shooting wildlife whenever the opportunity presents itself. Since it looks like this winter will be a record-breaking irruption of snowy owls, you can be sure I'll head out to see them in mid- to late-January, and maybe I'll also go looking for bald eagles along the Skagit again. I intend to go further afield and hit Eastern Washington again, as well as venturing into Oregon, Idaho and British Columbia to get those landscape shots I love so much. And we are in the planning stages for a return trip to sub-Saharan Africa, to get shots with a better camera and more experience under my belt, in the place where the very idea of a photography career was born.

In the meantime, I still have a number of matted prints that I'm trying to clear out (the exact number is 3,104,225), selling for $3 for 5x7, $5 for an 8x10 and $20 for 16x20. Unless you live in the Seattle area, I cannot guarantee you will receive it by Christmas if you order today, but I will ship as soon as I get your order. Please have a look and take these off my hands (these are basically selling at cost, just so I can get rid of them, so you're not going to find prints cheaper than this. You can find them at my Photoshelter site. I also have lovely 2014 landscape and wildlife calendars for sale for $13 +S&H, also on Photoshelter. Get them now before they're gone!

And as always, I'm looking for ways to build the business and find new clients for my portrait studio. So please, if you know anyone looking for a photographer, send them my way! I'd love to talk to them and set up a session. I see big things ahead for 2014, and I'd like for all of you to be a part of it!

The Wedding That Wasn't, Part II

I received an email a few weeks ago from someone we'll call Mr. X, who was wondering if I was available in October to shoot a wedding. My first wedding shoot! I was elated, of course, though his next statement made an eyebrow go up: he said he was impressed with my business profile on Manta.com. In case you didn't know, Manta is a business rating site, kind of like Yelp or Angie's List. While I am technically listed on Manta.com, my profile basically says, "Seattle photographer," and lists our address and phone number. So Mr. X is apparently easily impressed, but I shrugged and said, "Whatever."

After a few more emails in which I learned very little about the specifics of the wedding, I sent him my price sheet with my current package deals. Didn't hesitate, just said that his uncle would be paying my fee via cashier's check or money order. I said, "Money's money, so I'm not going to worry about it until the check actually arrives." Mr. X emailed a couple of days later, saying that his BROTHER had sent the check via courier, but had accidentally added my price AND the payment to their wedding planner in one check, so could I please write a check or money order and send it to the address they would specify later.

If you're not screaming, "Don't do it!" as loudly as I do when I watch a young girl about to investigate a strange noise in the basement in a horror movie, you should be. This is a fairly common form of Internet scam, known as an Advance Payment Fraud. I'd heard of it happening to people on eBay and Craigslist, where someone will win/buy an item, then "accidentally" overpay for the item and ask the seller to just send a Western Union moneygram for the amount overpaid. With cashier's checks and money orders, because they're issued by a bank or financial institution, your bank will accept them and make the funds available to you within a day or two, but the check itself has to be mailed back to the originating bank before someone will realize it's bogus, sometimes as much as ten days later. By that time, you've already sent the check to the buyer for the difference, and you've already shipped whatever item they had bought off you. So now, you're out the money you just wired, you have to pay back to your bank the price of the item you just sold, you're also out the item you were selling, and more than likely, your bank is already in the process of prosecuting you for fraud for trying to deposit a bogus check (because as far as they know, there is no buyer, and you're just trying to scam the bank).

At this point, lots of alarm bells were going off in my head, as they should have, but there was still a tiny iota of optimism that said, "Well, what if this is legitimate? What if I'm just dealing with the most disorganized, uncommunicative person who speaks English as a second language, and whose family comes from a country in which it's legal for her brother to marry her widowed aunt, making him her brother/uncle, who is wealthy and willing to pay for her wedding expenses out of the goodness of his heart, but isn't terribly organized himself (it's genetic, I tell you) and goes to the trouble of actually adding all the expenses up and writing a single check for it all and sending it to me? *pant*pant*pant* I wouldn't want to yell at them and call them frauds if they were legitimate, because I don't want to scare away potential clients."

Two things: If you read my previous post, you know my #1 rule for Internet financial security: if it feels like a scam, it's probably a scam. And secondly, as many business educators will tell you, if they are not your ideal client, don't be heartbroken if you have to cut them loose. You should focus 80% of your energy in attracting the people who fit the profile of your ideal client, in terms of income and budget, temperament, and the kinds of products and services they expect out of you. If you're spending 80% of your energy trying to please the 20% of your total clientele who are demanding, cheap or penny-pinching, overly critical fussbudgets who are looking to get more than they're due for the amount of money they're paying you, then you're doing something wrong. So even if they are legitimate, the minute they start making life difficult for you, you should be willing to say, "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I just can't work with you," and walk away. Be polite, but be firm.

However, since part of me was amused with this little game, I didn't say anything, and waited for the check to arrive. It was sent via FedEx and arrived this past Wednesday afternoon, and it kind of made me angry in a way, because these people aren't even trying to fool me. If I got burned by someone with a really clever con, sure, I'd be mad, but I'd have to nod and say, "Okay, that was good. I never saw that one coming."

These fools? Mailed a check from Georgia for someone who claimed to be currently living in Texas, in payment for a wedding that will be occurring here in Seattle, and I was supposed to wire half the amount to a purported wedding planner in.... West Padukah, Kentucky? Oh yes, and the name on the bank account from which the check was supposedly drawn? Colorado State University. Really? Did they think I wouldn't notice that someone on the Board of Regents for CSU was supposedly writing a check for their sister/niece's wedding expenses? And Kentucky? If you're planning on moving from Texas to Washington and are going to have your wedding up here in the Seattle area, presumably after you're moved and gotten all settled in, why in the name of all that's holy would you hire a wedding planner in Kentucky?? "Yes, ma'am, if you could just contact florists, churches, musicians, caterers, decorators, and bakeries you don't know in a state you may or may not have ever visited in your life? That'd be great."

So to sum up:

1. Cold-contacted me via email, saying my virtually non-existent Manta.com profile was impressive, and wanted to hire me to do wedding photos
2. Won't tell me where the wedding will be, so I can contact the venue and make sure photographers are allowed (some churches actually don't allow photographers in their weddings... never really understood why not)
3. Is a little confused over which relative will be paying for my expenses, which is really something you should know ahead of time.
4. Sends me the wrong amount of money, and asks me to just forward the difference to somebody after I cash the check.
5. Tells me to send the excess money to someone whom it doesn't make sense would be involved in this wedding.
6. Writes the check from an account that has absolutely no business sending funds for a wedding. (Called the bank, and the account exists, but the check didn't mention the Board of Regents, just Colorado State, so we all agreed it was probably bogus)
7. Has suspiciously bad English writing skills, which isn't necessarily an indication of wrongdoing by itself, but taken in conjunction with the rest, tells me they're a foreign national scamming Americans.

Sadly, they have my name and address, so I can't counter-scam them too much, or someone might actually show up at my door one day. Instead, I found the website for the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), which is a joint operation between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center, and filed a complaint. It's usually meant for people who have already lost money to a con to report the crime and hopefully help catch these people and maybe get a bit of their money back, but I figured, hey, crime in progress here, people; maybe if you jump on this, you'll catch a scammer in the act of scamming someone. I'll let you know if I hear of any action, but I thought I would relate my tale to you, dear friends, that you might learn from my experience and gain much needed paranoia when dealing with the faceless horde that is the Internet. For those of us who run small businesses, con artists like this waste our time and energy, and if you are approached by one, run away! I kept going with this one probably about three weeks longer than I really should have, but part of me hoped they would prove to be legitimate, because I really, REALLY wanted to shoot a wedding. *sigh* I wish these people would go away, or at least leave me alone, but since they're not, it behooves us all to be on the alert for them. There, you have been warned.

The Wedding That Wasn't, Part I

Since you're reading this, I know you have Internet access. Therefore, I know you have received at least one phishing email from someone trying to scam you out of hundreds or even thousands of dollars, and a few of you have even fallen for some of these con games. The Internet is like a sea full of hungry sharks, and as soon as you indicate weakness, some indication that you are even the slightest bit greedy or gullible -- preferrably both -- it's like blood in the water. If all the spam I've received offering me money were real, I would be a multi-billionaire by now.

As a public service, therefore, here are a few rules to keep in mind if you are contacted by someone offering you money.

1) No one wants to give you money, so 99.9% chance it's a scam. Period. People don't offer you money out of the blue. Even if you're entitled to some money, the people holding it will make it as difficult as possible to collect, because maybe they can use the money to make more money through investments and such; it behooves them to delay paying you as long as possible

2) If you didn't buy a lottery ticket, YOU DIDN'T WIN THE LOTTERY. Especially if it's a lottery you've never heard of, in a country you've never visited. See rule #1

3) If you don't know the person or anyone mentioned in their message, they are not a relative, and even if they are, they aren't going to give you money (if you're that distant a relation that you don't know who they are, why would they leave you money in their will?) See rule #1.

4) No one "selects your email at random" to win money. See Rule #1.

5) If someone wants to smuggle money out of a foreign country because they have come by it by illegitimate means, they're not going to choose YOU to move it. You are not the A-Team. You are not Billy Ocean or any of his associates. Unless you have diplomatic immunity, own a container ship or a reliable submarine, or have ties to banks in the Caiman Islands, you do not have the wherewithal to smuggle large sums of cash (you do know they trace wire transfers for security purposes, right? The sudden appearance of $20 million in the bank account of a school teacher or a cabinet maker is going to raise a few eyebrows.) In any case, even if it was true (which it isn't), secretly transferring large sums of money without declaring it or paying taxes on it is illegal, and not only could YOU lose money, but you could also go to jail for being complicit to a fraud.

6) Learning grammar, syntax and spelling really pays. Even uneducated Americans can speak and write English well enough to be understood and sound American, and while spelling is sometimes a weak point for many people, even middle-school dropouts will know enough to place verbs and nouns in the correct order. Oftentimes, however, since many of the Internet scammers are foreign-born, their grasp of English is usually not so hot. It might not be a fair measure of potential clients or long-lost relatives or legitimate legal entities who are seeking you out to give you money for something, to base your decision to give them access to your money solely on bad grammar or a really thick accent, it's unfortunately still a good practice to distrust anyone who claims to be an American but sounds like the instruction manual for an imported electronic device. ("Please to be sending a checque soonish for very fast processing your happy monies...")

7) No one, and I mean NO ONE accidentally pays $1000 extra for something they bought on the Internet, requiring the seller to send them money back. People can be stupid, but people are pretty tight with their cash, and don't want to spend more than they actually owe. See rule #1!! This leads into today's lesson; please continue reading Part II.

Just say "No" to anything that keeps you from being creative

Interesting article on the reality of being creative: while there are a very few figures in history that sat down one night and just scribbled out a masterpiece or painted something that created an entire genre of art or transcribed an epic tale straight from their imagination onto the page, there are even fewer who can be said to have sat down the next night and done it again. The rest of us need to sweat and toil, cry and bleed, beg and plead with our muse to inspire us, try and fail and try again and again until we create something we feel is worthwhile, inch by painful inch. It takes work and perseverance, and often the casual observer at a gallery or ticketholder at a concert or a reader of a great novel will never know of nor grasp the full depth of the work it took to produce the art they are now at liberty to enjoy.

I struggle with this myself all the time -- when I get home from the day job, a very vocal part of my psyche wants to sit down and play a game or see what's on TV or make myself a snack -- in short, anything except working on my art, because in a very real way, it is work, regardless of whether I enjoy it. I just got home from working one job, so starting to work on another doesn't seem that appealing.

What I always have to focus myself upon is the satisfaction that comes from creating something new and beautiful, and that it is ultimately more fulfilling than killing a screenful of zombies or watching videos of people's cats. I do this sometimes by stopping to look at the prints I've chosen to hang on my wall, and appreciate the things I did right as well as lessons I learned when I took each shot. Sometimes I take a moment to look up the work of other artists, to see what directions my own work might go, either in relation to or in reaction to what I see other people are doing. Sometimes on my way home from work, I'll stop by the grocery store or local park and take a moment to really look and see what colors or textures I can find that catch my eye, and this can give me ideas of what I could do in other aspects of my art.

So when you're tired or bored and want to inspire yourself to do something creative, how do you do it? What things in your life take away from your creative focus that you must say "No" to?.

A Challenge for All the Beautiful People

A brief departure today from photography and art (don't worry, this will eventually come back to the topic). Yesterday, I was reflecting on some of the aspects of my personality that probably could stand some improvement (trifling things, really *wink*), and realized that there are parts of me that I can choose to change and others that may always be there, like it or not. Likewise, I will never have the body of a seasoned athlete or Bruce Lee, because I have always been on the bigger side and always will be. I've gone on some pretty extreme diets, a couple of them borderline starvation, and as an adult have only gotten close to my supposed "ideal" weight/BMI once, at the end of Navy boot camp where I skipped a lot of meals, and felt like crap for several months afterwards. The doctors have told me for years that based on their little chart, someone my height should be between 140 and 180 pounds, which I haven't weighed since I was about twelve. So I will never be described as "svelte," but I can choose to love the body I'm in and strive to be healthier, rather than thinner or lighter. I can choose to be stronger and more capable, rather than better looking.

There are many things in our lives over which we have no control. We are pulled into this world bloodied and squawling, with no choice or say in the matter. We grow old and eventually die, and nothing we do to try to prevent it will truly stave off the effects of time beyond our allotted tenure. In this life, we will feel pain, both physical and emotional, and that is also inevitable - even if we strive to live in a bubble, an island among men, someone will still find a way to hurt us eventually. Our bodies change, break down, slow down, malfunction, and get sick more often as we get older, because of wear and tear, genetic predispositions, and the effects of the our modern world. These are things we generally cannot change.

There are things we can do something about, as well. We control our diets -- except in a few rare and exceptional cases, no one is cramming those cheeseburgers down our gullets except ourselves. We control our exercise regimens -- even the rich folks who have personal trainers to chase after them and make them exercise ultimately had to hire these people to keep them honest and exercise regularly, and that was the choice, to give that control to someone else. We have a choice of lifestyle -- to smoke or not to smoke? one more drink for the road or let's keep it to a minimum? sex with protection or without? These are all choices we can make that affect our health, longevity, and to one extent or another, our looks as well.

There have always been ascetics among us, who say, "The world is full of horrible things and life is full of pain. It's not worth fighting against it; just give up and accept that we're going to lose our youth, that life is short and violent and will end badly for every one of us." Nihilism has never been my thing, and we will never accomplish anything in life if we just give up and fail to strive for something better, to achieve our goals and become better for the effort. On the flip side of the coin, there is only so much energy one can expend fighting what is truly inevitable -- running every day and eating nothing but bran and Greek yogurt will not prevent you from growing old and dying one day, and the harder you work to prevent the inevitable, the shorter and less fulfilling your life will probably be.

So what is a reasonable person to do about the things we cannot change? Do not fight them, but do not let them define you. Accept them as truths, but not as the entirety of your reality. Many people moan about how they're not as _____ as they used to be, and no matter how hard they try, they can't seem to get back to _______ like they were in high school. These people miss the point -- if you didn't accept the changes that came in your life, move onwards and grow from them, then that point in your history upon which you dwell will truly be the apex of your existence, and everything from that point is a downward slide into oblivion. Rather, if you acknowledge that yes, you were indeed a "10" back in your high school or college years, and accept the truth that you've definitely aged since then, and gravity has indeed taken some toll upon you, then you have the opportunity to view yourself in a new light, as you are now. You may have been a "10" once, but now you're an "11," by virtue of all the things you've learned since then and all the things you've become -- you know what's truly important, now.

So when you look in the mirror in the morning, and see the face of experience looking back at you, don't cry over the loss of your youth -- celebrate your maturity. You're finally ripe now! You EARNED those laugh lines. You have more curves because you've sanded off all the rough edges. You look different because you ARE different: better! There's a REASON the kids are supposed to resepct you! Beauty is indeed more than skin deep, and your beauty is the sum of your entire being, not just the outward-facing shell. When you plan your diet and exercise regimen, therefore, don't just think about how it's going to make your butt look or whether it will give you impressive pecs, but whether it will make you healthier and happier. Do it as much (if not more) because it will help you continue playing the game called life for longer and as a more active participant than because someone says you're supposed to be a certain weight or shape or size. Love the skin you're in, take care of it, and let the critics be damned.

As for your looks, focus on the positive. What do you LOVE about yourself? Learning to appreciate how beautiful you are right now is not about lowering your standards or becoming blind to your imperfections, but rather changing the perspective from which you view yourself. As a photographer (see? told you I'd get back around to it), I can make the hottest woman in the world look frumpy through my choice of lens, exposure, backdrop and camera angle (trust me... I've done it) Learn to love the skin you're in, and you'll find it's much easier to love who's in that skin (wow, had to read that a few times to make sure it made sense... but it does)

I want you to go look at yourself in the mirror, right now. I'll wait right here. Take a really good look, and I want you to say to yourself, "I _AM_ beautiful, dammit. And I _DO_ look good naked." Yes, you too, men -- because beauty is a part of your whole being, you can be beautiful and still be masculine, so shut up and play along. If someone pays you a compliment on your looks from now on, accept it graciously. I don't want to hear anyone say, "Oh, no, I've put on some weight and I've never been happy with my nose or my chin, and my boobs are saggy and and and and," because that person isn't focusing on the positive and hasn't learned to love the skin they're in, and if you argue long enough with people who compliment you, they'll stop complimenting you, which only reinforces your negative view of yourself.

It's hard to do, I know -- we're our own worst critics, and it's easy to get down on yourself for those times you went back for seconds at dinner, or decided to share in the doughnuts at the Monday strategy meeting, or chose to skip the gym one day or another because you just didn't feel like it, and point to those choices as the reason we don't have the body we want. It doesn't feel so bad when you learn to WANT the body you've GOT, and just want to make it better. It actually helps you work toward your diet and exercise goals, ironically enough -- if you love your body, you want to take better care of it, right? and are less likely to feel too bad if you fall off the wagon once or twice. If it helps, ask your family and friends -- what do they appreciate about your body? Your significant other should be able to list some things they like about you -- why are they still attracted to you? (they already know they need to get this question right!) Sometimes, you need an outside observer to point out the things you're doing right, because you get so focused on fixing what you perceive to be wrong about yourself.

That's where I come in. If you want more proof that you are beautiful and deserve to love the skin you're in, give me a call and schedule a session in my studio. I'll show you photographic evidence that you're a lot better looking than you think. My job isn't about making you look better than you really are, it's showing you exactly how good you already look. I like to think that's why the raw, un-Photoshopped images are referred to as "proofs:" they're proof of the beauty that graced my studio on the day of your shoot. Don't believe me? Come in and prove me wrong. I double-dog dare ya!

I'd like to point y'all over to Crista Meola's blog, where she has a fantastic interview with Katherine Roll, a curvy model who has overcome a lot of societal bias in her career due to her size and the perception of beauty in America. Her confidence and celebration of her body just the way it is is quite inspiring!

http://christameola.com/blog/boudoir/a-curvy-conversation

Lessons learned... and rocked!

Super jazzed about last weekend's boudoir shoot with the lovely Miss Annie out east, and the rest of the weekend cruising the Palouse looking for ghost towns and abandoned buildings. I've been busily editing photos, and reflecting on the whole experience, and as I mentioned in my last post, trying to focus on the things I did right rather than dwell on what could have gone better. Learn from newbie mistakes and move on to better things! That's today's take-away.

Before I get to a sampling of my favorite shots from the session, I'll tease you a little longer by discussing the things I learned, in a more-or-less chronological order.

1) Google Maps will get you reasonably close to your destination, but you should never implicitly trust it to find you the quickest or most direct route... several times, I followed "Go south on I-195 for four miles, turn right on side road X. After six miles, turn left on road Y, 3.7 miles. Slight right, becomes road z, 10 miles and merge onto I-195 south." Wait a minute.... didn't... wait.. what?

1.5) By the way, very, very, rarely, Google Maps will try to kill you. If it's springtime, and Google Maps insists you take an unimproved county road right after a rainfall, JUST. SAY. NO. Especially if you're driving a 2000 Saturn SC3 coupe. You will not make it to your next stop on time. Just saying.

2) When you choose to do something a little sketchy, say like advertise on Craigslist asking for boudoir photo volunteers and offering no session fee and five free prints in exchange for their time, you'll probably get weirdos (there are a lot of them out there) and more likely no responses at all. If you happen to post your ad on April 1, you'll get even fewer responses as you might like. Didn't even think of that until Annie pointed it out to me and said she almost didn't respond to my ad. Oops.

3) During any sort of model shoot, your model is obviously the prime focus of any shot, but the background is also important; if there's a lot of other stuff in the background, it can distract a viewer from the star of the show. So if you're using backdrops to cover up the background, make sure the backdrops actually extend out to fill the frame. Took a lot of shots where you can see the stands holding up the backdrop, or it only covered one side of the frame because of the angle I was shooting from (the shoot was in her home, so I was constrained by the size and geometry of the rooms we were in). Yes, with some effort, you can Photoshop out distracting elements, but if you don't HAVE to, it can save you hours of work (and if you don't like having to paint in a background at the pixel level, getting it to show through between individual hairs is a nightmare, especially if you don't do photo retouching regularly)

4) It's best to work with makeup artists and stylists that you already know, rather than calling one up out of the blue. Asking a complete stranger to show up at a client's house (which, being a  split-level rental just off of the U. of Idaho campus, was two potted plants and a working doorbell away from being eligible for my abandoned houses shoot the next day) seems kind of sketchy. I'd like to take the opportunity to thank Heather from Southern Glow Company for her bravery and for an awesome job on Annie's makeup, and I hope the next time we work together, it'll be less creepy *grin*

5) Be flexible! Turns out some of my favorite shots resulted from a moment of panic when I ran out of ideas and then grabbed a prop off the mantlepiece or shelf and threw it into the mix. When your model isn't just standing there posing but is instead interacting with something, it makes the shoot much more interesting -- action is always more interesting to watch, so get your model moving! It may seem silly at the time, but the act of moving about takes the model's focus off of you and onto what she's doing, and makes the shot more kinetic -- if she's jumping into the air, for instance, her hair will increase in volume due to the momentary release from gravity's effect. Even just having your model toss a pillow into the air and catch it can make for visually interesting moments.

Okay, fine, you want to see pictures. I'm not done editing the ghost town photos yet, so I'll post those in another blog, but you wanted to see the boudoir shots anyway, right?

 

 

 

Once again, thanks to Annie B. for stepping up and giving me a chance to refine my art! I had a blast, and from all accounts, she did too! (Just got a nice email saying if I come out to Eastern Washington again, she'd like to do another shoot with me.. and maybe pay me this time! Doesn't get better than that!)

Ruminations on Beauty

A number of factors have come together recently that have given me a brief moment of clarity. Hopefully, I won't muddy things up too badly in my attempt at putting this experience into words.

Over the past year, the soap and beauty product company Dove has been leading a campaign called Real Beauty, in which they discuss aspects of how our culture  has created and fostered an artificial and generally unattainable ideal when it comes to how women "should" look. The most recent was rather poignant for me, called "Real Beauty Sketches." Briefly, women were seated next to an FBI forensic sketch artist, separated by a curtain, and asked to describe themselves as accurately as they could. Then, a stranger would be brought in and asked to describe that same woman after having met her briefly before the sitting. When confronted with the two sketches side-by-side, many women discovered that the face staring back at them from the left side of the board -- representing how they saw themselves -- looked heavier, sadder or angrier, and generally less attractive than the sketch drawn from the recollections of a stranger. (To see the video, click here: http://youtu.be/XpaOjMXyJGk)

I've also been working through a program called Strengths Finder, which as the title suggests is designed to help identify my strengths and what career and life choices I could make that would best capitalize on those strengths in order to advance in my career and be happier overall. It struck me that on a physical level, this is exactly what we probably all need to do when it comes to our own self image. Because of the distorted and extremely narrow view of beauty in America, the vast majority of the population feels it is too fat, too short, too tall, too dark, too light, nose too big, eyes too small, hair too short or long, and so we need plastic surgery, colored contact lenses, expensive clothes and cosmetics, and extreme diets and exercise regimens to try to achieve an ideal of beauty that many of us never reach, and honestly never should. We don't spend enough time focusing instead on what is beautiful about each and every one of us, and work instead on accentuating and building upon what is right about our bodies. In a lot of ways, my work in boudoir photography can help do just that.

I know what some people would think about that statement. "Oh, you're just taking dirty pictures of girls! That's demeaning and objectifying, not empowering!" They say that because they've missed the point; this isn't pornography, but a way for a woman to express her beauty and sexiness, just as much to herself as to the people to whom she chooses to show her boudoir photos. Talking with other boudoir photographers, I've heard lots of stories of how a nervous soccer mom or a recent cancer survivor came into the studio seeking to reconnect with themselves through the lens of a camera, and were stunned to see just how beautiful they really were, just the way they are. A little makeup, a nice outfit (or lack thereof), and an objective set of eyes were all that were required to bring out the hottie from within the veneer of the everyday.

We get so self-conscious about our appearance that many of us choose to hide behind clothes that don't fit properly, make excuses not to go out on the town with friends, and avoid being photographed whenever possible because we don't feel attractive enough to be seen in public or immortalized on film. The face we see in the mirror each morning is never going to be good enough, because we view it through the additional distorting lens of our expectations of ourselves -- the self we SHOULD be, but haven't quite made it to just yet. But once I earn a woman's trust enough for her to let go of those expectations and enjoy a moment of sexiness in my studio, I hope to show her that not only is there nowhere to hide when her clothes come off, but that there isn't anything to hide, anyway -- she's beautiful just the way she is. Yes, she's a little wider around the midsection than Heidi Klum, but guess what? So are the rest of us. What about her expressive eyes, her warm smile, her amazing legs? Why not focus on those?

So you think you're too fat to do a boudoir shoot? Too old? Too flat-out ugly? There isn't a single feature of your body that you like at all, and think there's no way I can make you look beautiful on camera? Challenge accepted, lady. Give me a call, schedule a session, and when you meet up with me again to look at the finished photos, if you absolutely hate everything you see, I will give you your session fee back. There will never be any obligation to buy prints and products after a shoot, and no minimum order -- first and foremost, I want you to enjoy the experience of a boudoir shoot with me, and I want you to walk away feeling beautiful and sexy. In fact, that's the ultimate goal of my boudoir business: I want those photos of you to look so amazing that you can't walk away without buying them all, and feeling they're worth every penny. Then I want you to take it from there, and extend the confidence you feel knowing how good you look to permeate all the other aspects of your life. When you look good and feel good, you're more likely to take better care of yourself, both in terms of physical as well as emotional health. You are bolder, and more likely to strive for greater things, and you not only hang out with other beautiful and powerful people, but also find it easier to see the beauty in everyone around you.

My message to everyone reading this (yes, both of you) is simply this: You are beautiful just the way you are. And if I've got to bring my entire studio over to your house in order to prove it to you, then that is exactly what I'm going to do.  I'm waiting for your call!

Branching Out

Very soon, I embark on a new chapter in my photography career, for I have recently found someone who has expressed interest in a boudoir photo session. Although I don’t know if I will ever reach a point in my business in which boudoir photography will comprise the majority of my paying clients, I would certainly like to leave that possibility open and available, so I’m jumping at this opportunity to work on this aspect of my art.

For those of you who haven’t heard of it, boudoir photography deals with images of the (usually) female form in a more intimate manner than your standard art nude. It celebrates the beauty of the human figure through depictions of female sensuality, rather than strictly sexuality – rather than a form of pornography, in other words, boudoir photography focuses more on a woman’s appreciation of herself and her own beauty. It may or may not involve either partial or full nudity, and is not restricted to the bedroom (despite the name “boudoir,” which was a woman’s bedroom or sitting room, the art of boudoir photography is more about intimacy of the woman, regardless of her location). It produces images of women being and feeling sexy, being comfortable and relaxed in their own bodies.

That’s a very powerful idea, and one that I emphasize in my approach to boudoir. There is something of a stigma attached to boudoir photography by virtue of its involvement with nudity; American society still feels attached to its Puritan roots when it comes to art involving nudity, and seems to shy away from anything even remotely sexual in nature. It has only relatively recently become more mainstream for women to accept and embrace their sexuality and to simply enjoy being in the skin they’re in. So rather than a somewhat fringe and risqué behavior, it is slowly becoming more acceptable and even desirable for women to get photographs of themselves that celebrate just how beautiful they are, no matter their size, shape, age or color.

There are a million reasons why women choose to have boudoir photos taken, and extend well above and beyond that “special present” for their husbands or boyfriends – many do it for their own benefit, their own enjoyment. Perhaps a woman has lost a lot of weight recently and wants boudoir photos as a way of celebrating how much better she looks. Maybe other significant life changes have happened and a woman wants them as an affirmation that she is still a vital and beautiful human, or maybe she’s feeling at the top of her game and this is just one more way to show she’s got the goods. Many women have boudoir photos taken as a group and make a sort of party out of it, as a way to share an experience with their best friends that is completely safe but just a little bit naughty.

Whatever the client’s reasons, it is the job of the boudoir photographer to create art with a client’s body that emphasizes the positive energy and natural beauty she possesses, and to make her comfortable with the idea of others paying attention to her, either directly or through the images that are created through the camera’s lens. Many women (particularly moms) seem to have difficulty justifying doing anything for themselves, in the belief that spending time or money or effort on themselves is somehow selfish, or they give so much of themselves to others that they have forgotten how to appreciate their own bodies. They place upon themselves the onus of meeting the needs of their families before their own, so having photographs taken that say, “Look at me! Look how amazing I am!” seems like the ultimate indulgence, but it’s actually in many ways exactly the opposite: when you feel good about yourself, you’re more confident and ultimately more effective in your everyday life, so taking care of yourself and really feeling your self worth gives you the power to strive for greater things in all aspects of your life. So the boudoir photographer can be a sort of combination of coach and cheerleader, encouraging women to explore and discover (in the words one of notable boudoir photographer) their own “fabulousness.”

Of course, I have the added challenge of being male; female boudoir photographers have a somewhat easier time getting their clients to relax and enjoy the experience of a photo shoot because having a strange woman in their home is a lot less threatening than having a strange man there (even one as handsome as me *grin*). So part of my learning curve is how to put my clients at ease that I’m not just some creepy guy who wants to take naked pictures of them, and that, I believe, will come with time, as I build a reputable and high-class portfolio of boudoir work that people can see ahead of time. When possible, of course, it would help to have Chris present as my assistant, and the makeup artist and hair stylist as well (since I am by no means above conscript labor in getting shots onto the camera if I need bodies to hold lights, reflectors or the odd electric fan), but I’ll need to get comfortable working with a client until she’s basically forgotten I have a gender (or, ideally, that I’m even present in the room), and she’s just enjoying being herself and for whatever reason, a flash keeps going off nearby.

I obviously can’t know that I’ve prepared adequately until after I walk away from the finished shoot, but I’m fairly certain I’ve got what I need to make this session a success. I’m pretty excited, and I’ll let you know how it went when I return. Wish me luck!

Plans for 2013

Yes, I know it's been a while. Blogging is actually a lot harder than it seems, because there are times when you just can't think of anything to say. You'd think that wouldn't be a problem for a jabberjaw like me, but I guess writing uses a different, less-effusive language center in my brain (my memory of biology is sketchy, but I seem to remember Broca's region and Wernicke's region. I don't remember which one does what... but I digress)

I have been experimenting in the studio with some sculpture ideas, expanding on my use of recycled metal components and bent wire to also include old circuit boards. This is probably going to take quite a long time, since I have to de-solder all the old boards I've gotten ahold of, dye them the colors I want (since they're all green), cut them to the shapes that I need, and teach myself how to solder the shapes into place using a copper foil normally used for making stained glass windows. I have plans for a bejewelled tortoise, a Tiffany-inspired table lamp, a dragon emerging from an egg, a jewelry box and some simple luminaria (which I will probably make first, since they'll (theoretically) be the easiest. If there are any requests out there for things I should make, by all means let me know and I'll see what I can do. As work progresses, I'll post updates, but expect it to be slow-going.

On the photography front, I will be providing photography services for Chris's "Mentoring Movement" event in April (click here for tickets and information ), and I also plan to take a weekend in April to cruise through the Palouse, focusing more on the very southeastern corner of Washington and maybe wandering into Idaho and northeastern Oregon. May is kind of shot, with weekend work at the day job and Seattle Symphony Chorale performances ( If you're interested in tickets, click here ), so I won't be able to leave town until June. If my schedule allows, I'd like to get to the Olympic Peninsula in June, shooting both along the coast as well as in the rainforest (Hoh river valley, as well as on up to Hurricane Ridge). And...

(fanfare)

... plans are now set in stone for my trip to Alaska in July! I'll fly out to Lake Clark National Park for several days of photographing Alaskan brown bears during the summer months when any new cubs should be out and about, food is plentiful and the bears are less likely to try to eat me. I'm pretty stoked, and I'll be sure to let you know when the new photos are up and available.

In the meantime, I'm offering a sale on prints on my Photoshelter site. Go to mikeuyyek.photoshelter.com and browse my galleries. Enter coupon code "summerfun" at checkout and receive 40% off your entire order! (Lets just see who's a good blog reader and finds this deal!) To get you started, here are some snowy owls I found last month out near the Washington coast. Enjoy!
Snowy owls - Images by Michael Uyyek

Wild vs. Captive

I just returned from a long weekend at Mount Rainier National Park here in Washington State, and while the weather was clear and very warm, I didn't get many wildlife shots like I had hoped. I managed to catch a glimpse of a fox carring a fresh kill into the underbrush, and I ran across a young bear on the trails above Sunrise, but most of the other animals were conspicuously absent from view. Since this trip was as much a vacation as it was a photo opportunity, I shrugged and chalked it up to luck, which is often more than 50% of a successful wildlife shoot.

On the way home, we discovered a stretch of Highway 7 was closed for some sort of road work, and the detour took us past the Northwest Trek Wildlife Park. Remarking that she had never been there, Chris agreed it might be kind of fun to stop in and take the tram ride around the park, since we were already in the neighborhood. Although the subsequent shots of the animals in the park will probably not win me any awards, it was still fun to see all the different Northwest species (all the large, photogenic ones, at any rate) all in one place.

The experience brought to mind an article written for Audubon Magazine by Ted Williams entitled Phony Wildlife Photography Gives a Warped View of Nature: The dark side of those wondrous wildlife photographs" </a>(March/April 2010) about the pros and cons of photographing captive animals and the questionable ethics of claiming to have shot them in the wild. There is a certain sense of dishonesty that you get when photographing animals at a zoo or game farm simply because you didn't have to stalk the animal ourself and plan your shot so you'd have the best chance of catching our target in just the right poses at just the right angle, with perfect light and environmental elements in just the right places. Especially in the case of game farms that allow you to rent animals specifically for photography, much of the work is eliminated by having a semi-tame animal actually hode a pose for you for as long as it takes for you to get your camera settings just right. Wild animals won't do that, and if you look at the shot I managed to get of the bear at Mount Rainier, it's pretty obvious he wasn't groomed just before I showed up with my camera, either. In fact, he shows signs of being roughed up a bit in his short life, which might add something to his character but doesn't necessarily make him more photogenic.
Captive animals present the professional photographer with two opposing things. On the one hand, they give the photographer access to species that many photographers go a lifetime without seeing in the wild, with time enough to get the “money shots” that actually sell to magazine and book publishers. In the purely economic sense, having a tame animal pose for you is good business, because for a fee, you are guaranteed the best shots you are capable of taking, and you don’t have to invest days or weeks (or sometimes years) trying to achieve the same shot chasing after wild animals. Add to that the benefit of comfort – you don’t have to freeze your butt off in some snowy wilderness for months living off beef jerky and powdered eggs while hoping against hope to capture a shot or two of a snow leopard, because all you have to do is wait for the keeper to bring the leopard out of its pen to hop up on the convenient rock or log in their studio, eat its treat given as reward for behaving completely unnaturally and stand there for several minutes looking bored. They are groomed and look cleaner and more picture-perfect than you will ever find in an actual forest, and almost come with a money-back-guarantee – if National Geographic doesn’t hire you on the spot after seeing these photos, then we’ve done something wrong.
On the other hand, these animals are indeed captive. They do not lead the lives nature intended for them, and while some operators of wild game farms make the effort to introduce enrichment activities for their animals, many do not. The animals often suffer from extreme ennui if not outright abuse.  And as for the photography, as Williams argues in his article, it feels fake. They look too good, and the relative ease of photographing them makes it seem to the viewer that they are more numerous or easier to find and photograph than they really are. When you see dozens of photos of tigers in multiple magazines, all looking healthy and magnificent, it almost seems as though you are seeing them everywhere in your daily life, and you get the mistaken impression that they are nearly ubiquitous in the world at large. The photo, and even the message of conservation that may be behind the photo, gets diluted by the frequency of viewing of similar images.
There once was a time when photographers and editors were actually fired for doctoring photos “too much,” by which they meant at all – even removing blades of grass that obstructed the view of the subject. If you didn’t get the shot in camera, then you didn’t get the shot, and creative editing was considered by many to be a form of fraud. Now we Photoshop everything. Yet in wildlife photography, there is still a sense of integrity that exists among the brethren, that if you can get the shot in camera, that’s always best, and if not, minimal tampering to improve the image is okay but you can’t add elements that weren’t there (adding a moon when it wasn’t really out that night, or wildflowers when they weren’t actually in bloom when you were there). If you must get a shot of an animal for an assignment and simply can’t fly to Siberia or Africa to go get it, it’s okay to get the shot from a game farm, but you had better be sure to declare it and not try to sell it as a true wildlife photo. A few recent cases illustrate this point, where photographers were disqualified from wild animal photo competitions when it came out that their shots were staged using tame animals. They were shots of animals that are normally wild, and the shots looked amazing, but the fakery that went into staging them was and is still unacceptable by the rest of us, who prefer to know or at least imagine that the shot is of a wild animal, behaving naturally rather than because of any conditioning or training by a keeper.
So here’s the deal I make with you. This past weekend, I got halfway decent shots of two wild animals, the bear and the fox, and I got a dozen others from Northwest Trek that were a little better than halfway decent, because they were contained in a 450 acre facility with nowhere else to go, so I was guaranteed to get shots of most of them. They weren’t posed for me, and were not tamed in any way, so they fall somewhere between true wildlife and game farm animals, in my opinion. In the meta data and file descriptions, any captive, non-domesticated animals that I photograph will be labeled “CAPTIVE,” to differentiate them from animals I actually ran across in my wanderings in the woods. I still prefer to find and photograph animals in the wild, but some of them I’m probably just never going to see, so I’m not above shooting at a zoo or even a game farm where I’ve rented an animal for an hour.  (I’ve chased after bighorn sheep every time I’ve visited Mount Rainier and have yet to see them in the wild, yet it took me all of twenty minutes to see a whole herd of them at Northwest Trek) I want to give you as many good shots of as many different subjects as I can, but I want to do so with full disclosure of where and how I got them. It's the only way I can keep myself out of trouble.
Mt. Rainier 2012 - Images by Michael Uyyek

The Pros and Cons of a Telephoto Lens

Okay, I’ll admit it: I’m a terrible blogger. A naughty, negligent blogger. I could try to make the excuse that the OTHER job has kept me from pursuing my art to the extent I would have liked, or that I’ve been swamped with my new exercise and diet regime, my work with the Seattle Symphony Chorale, or just trying to keep up with Mrs. Yuk, but those really are just excuses. I’ll take my spanking later, but for now, I have blogging to do.


I recently learned that Haystack Rock, the prominent seastack that stands sentry over Cannon Beach, Oregon serves as a spring nesting area not only for more common sea birds like gulls and cormorants, but also to tufted puffins. Unable to resist actually seeing them in the wild, I sped on down there
for a weekend of shooting, only to confront a near perfect storm of photography challenges:


1) The weather along the Oregon coast is unpredictable at best, and while I was there, it was mostly overcast and often raining with a steady drizzle and light but steady winds.
2) Haystack Rock is a protected wildlife area and marine sanctuary, so while you can approach its base, you cannot climb upon it, both for public safety reasons as well as not to disturb nesting sea birds. Therefore, I had to content myself with shooting with my telephoto lens at a distance of about 100 yards.
3) Animals have this annoying habit of moving around a lot.


That particular weekend, the morning low tide occurred right around dawn (part of the reason I planned to go when I did, reasoning that I would get good light during the "golden hour" just after dawn), but when I got to Haystack Rock, I had to wait a solid hour before there was even enough light to pick out any of the birds on the rock face and locate any puffins, because the cloud cover was so thick that it stayed dark and dismal well into the afternoon. With my Canon EF 28-135 mm lens, this is what I could get later in the afternoon (shooting a Canon EOS 5D II in RAW mode, f/11 ISO 400 at 1/15 sec)

Attaching my EF 100-400 telephoto zoom didn't quite do enough, so I was forced to attach my doubler as well. This meant that the widest apeture I could shoot with was f/11 (using my doubler meant that I was effectively shooting with an 800 mm telephoto lens, but because of the physical size of the internal glass, it reduced the size of the opening through which light could pass. Luckily, I wanted to try to get better depth of field, so f/11 was fine with me, but it also meant that the autofocus was disabled, so I would have to do it all manually, and I was still stuck with fairly slow shutter speeds) With this combination, I managed to get this shot (f/11 at 1/6 sec):

Still not exactly an exciting photo, until you zoom in digitally and discover what you're really looking at.

Success! Puffins! Only, not a success in terms of capturing an image with enough quality to sell commercially; kind of grainy and noisy because I had to crop so much, and not tack sharp due to the aforementioned focusing issues. Here's where that perfect storm came into play. Because the light was quite dark both mornings, I had to use a very slow shutter speed (usually between 1/4 and 1/10 sec), so any slight movement by the bird or the grasses would cause motion blur. In addition, the wind kept jostling the camera, also introducing motion blur - because I was forced to zoom in so much, any tiny vibration of the camera on its tripod translated to a lot of motion in the image) Compound that with the fact that my vision has never been so great, yet I had to manually focus on an image that shook like an earthquake due to the extreme zoom I was at, and I was lucky to capture anything at all.

So two questions arise from this experience, the first being: what good is a zoom lens, then, if it introduces all these challenges? Well, if you use a telephoto or zoom lens to bring objects closer (within reason), you can capture details of an overall scene that a shorter lens might overlook. If I

stuck with only a short lens, all I would have gotten was the wide shot I showed first up above. If I then cropped in to see the puffins, they'd just be a black blur with an orange blob in the center, right? Although it is useful to photograph wildlife at a distance (especially large groups of animals), the closer you can get to your subject is still better for getting more detail, even when using a telephoto lens. The closer you can get (still within the focal distance of your lens, naturally), the less that camera shake will affect the image, the crisper the focus will be and the more light you can collect from your intended subject.

What do I mean? Remember the post I did last year regarding focal length and depth of field? Now take another look at the wide and zoomed shots of Haystack Rock above. The wide shot received all the light reflecting off of all those surfaces and coming straight in through the lens. The narrow,

zoomed shot of the puffins and muirs only caught the light reflecting from that smaller area and making the 300 ft journey to my zoom lens. That's why professional wildlife photographers invest the money to get really fast telephoto lenses (i.e. ones that gather a lot of light), which allow you to

shoot with a faster shutter speed while zoomed in on your subject, and therefore you have a better chance of catching a nice, crisp shot.

The second question is a little more subjective: why did I bother taking the shots at all, knowing they probably wouldn't end up being usable? Because I'm a photographer, and I went down there specifically to shoot puffins, so that's what I did. It's not all about getting the shot that will sell,

sometimes it's the challenge of getting the best image you can possibly get under the conditions in which you find yourself. Sometimes, it's about getting a shot that you like to look at, even if it will never be commercially useful, but because you think it's beautiful. And if you're serious about wildlife and landscape photography, you have to accept the fact that there will be times when the animals didn't get the memo to appear when and where they were supposed to, that the weather will not always cooperate, or the flowers bloom exactly when you expected them to, or possibly,

unbeknownst to you, they built a TGIFridays right on the spot where you planned to shoot your favorite vista. It's a test of your flexibility and ability to adapt to the situation.

I've heard lots of stories from photographers who travelled sometimes thousands of miles to shoot a seasonal migration or some intermittent event like the Northern Lights, only to find that they basically came all that way to camp for a week without seeing what they wanted to shoot. They simply needed to shift their expectations and look around their environment to find something else to shoot while waiting for their primary subject to arrive, and often, they found something a lot more interesting than what they came to shoot in the first place.

As always, therefore, I encourage you to play with your equipment and learn the limitations of each piece you own. You can see the kinds of images you'll get if you do zoom way in on something, or at how slow a shutter speed you can still handhold your camera, or what kinds of lens flare or

vignetting you get with which lenses in your kit. If you're thinking of upgrading, I highly recommend visiting your local camera shop and finding out if they rent equipment -- for $25, you can find out if you like how a piece of kit feels and operates, without spending $500-$1000 for something you

might not like. It always pays to take things for a test drive before buying, if you have the option. This way, you have an idea of what your gear is capable of doing, and whether or not a certain loss of image quality due to conditions beyond your control are still worth it to you. (Here's a hint: it's usually worth it)

Video: 2011 recap

Thanks for reading my blog, and stay tuned for more posts coming soon!

What is a Conservation Photographer?

I recently read a blog by landscape photographer  Benjamin Blatt who questioned his own role in conservation, and it got me to thinking about whether or not I truly had a philosophy of my own with regard to environmental photography, and if so, what it might be.  Blatt makes the point that the "wow" shots of stunning sunsets over snow-capped mountains or ocean waves crashing on some remote beach are exploitive, that he took those photos with only the intention of selling them and with much less of a focus on ensuring that such places continue to exist. He goes on to suggest that, from a purely environmental and conservatory standpoint, the only photos that have any power to change or influence are those that are shot with an eye towards encouraging meaningful dialogue or spurring people to action to protect the natural world. Some of the commenters on his blog suggest that even this is not enough, that by flying or driving to these places, he does more damage than good by burning fossil fuels, besmirching the natural environment by his very presence, etc.
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I simply can't go that far, but I can claim a position somewhere in the middle of the road. I believe it comes down to your own personal attitude about your work. Let's just say I fly all the way to Tanzania, and while there, I capture a really awesome shot of Mount Kilimanjaro at sunset. I can process it, print it, frame it and get it hung in a gallery somewhere and say, "See what a great photographer I am? This can be yours for only $1000!" I might also see if I can get it included as part of an article on global warming, with emphasis on how the glaciers have receded on Kilimanjaro, and will have completely melted within fifteen years at their current rate of recession. The exact same shot, two different messages. Yes, the carbon emitted by the plane that brought me there contributed in a small way to the very problem I claim to be fighting, but it may be a small sacrifice that must be made in order to bring attention to the problem in the first place.
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Many landscape photographers DO simply take shots meant solely for the gallery, and give no thought to whether or not their work influences others to take action on behalf of the environment or if it might help to form conservation policy, and that's all right. Ultimately, you list photography as a career because you wish to make a living while doing it, so that aspect is hard to avoid unless you specifically work for a publication dedicated to conservation or environmental issues, or if your photography is for an organization like the EPA or UNESCO. You're still selling your work; whether or not that work might be labelled "exploitive" is a matter of perspective. If you don't travel to get those landscape shots in far flung locales, you're stuck trying to find unique ways to photograph what's in your backyard, and unless you also do weddings and graduation photos, you may find yourself hard-pressed to make a living as a photographer.
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When I shoot a landscape, my first thought is whether or not the finished photo will look good. First and foremost, I am an artist, and I want to produce work that pleases me and hopefully pleases the viewer. After that, I hope it makes me some money, because otherwise, this is a really expensive hobby I've got. Then I think about the greater impact my photo has on the world. The words that DON't go through my mind when planning a shot (or even a trip to take the shot) are, "Oh, I'm not going to take this photo, because it won't change the world." If you choose to call that side of it "exploitive," that is your perogative, but it's not going to stop me from going out and taking photos.
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People will only fight to protect what they are aware needs protecting. It's hard to convince people to volunteer their time or donate money or write to their congress-people in support of something they know nothing about, and simply telling them about it often doesn't convey the value of what they'd be fighting for. So there is value in showing people the beauty of the natural world, if they know that through either their actions or lack thereof, the little corner of the world you've shown them might be lost. You can take a picture of a Bengal tiger and just caption it, "Bengal tiger, Rajasthan, India," or you could point out that there are fewer than 2500 Bengal tigers left worldwide due to poaching and habitat loss, and of those, most are in zoos. The photo helps you get the message across, but you can't get the photo without going there, so there is a balance between the harm you might do the environment through flying to a location and the good you do by shining a spotlight on an endangered species. If a beautiful landscape photo brings attention to an area of the world threatened by human industry, it isn't exploitive, but rather it gives the viewer a reason to care. Taking a photo of a natural scene or landmark that has already been spoiled by erosion, loss of habitat from clearcutting or strip mining, cluttered with litter or pollution, or otherwise ruined certainly shines a spotlight on the problem, but from what I've seen, if that isn't paired with a photo of what that same scene looked like before people destroyed it, all it causes most people to do is shake their heads, cluck their tongues and say, "What a shame. What a waste." If you wish to spur activism on nature's behalf, you have to also show people what it once was and could be again.
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If I were given the opportunity to use my photography to initiate a dialogue on an environmental topic, I would certainly jump at it. The fact that the same photo might also sell commercially doesn't bother me -- in the same way that you might recall a particularly memorable commercial when you see the product elsewhere, you might recall the article on wildlife conservation you read a couple of weeks ago when you see the same photo hanging in a gallery or on public display, and it might remind you that you had intended to donate money toward a cause or join a letter writing campaign in support of the environment. To goad people to action in defense of nature is great, and to make a living while doing so is even better. The two are not mutually exclusive.
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So what's your relationship with the natural world? Exploitive? Advocative? Or somewhere in the middle?