Striking lightning (before it strikes you)

Let’s start with the given that lightning is dangerous, and the distinct possibility that photographers are stupid. Combining the two is a recipe for disaster. Add a shear, one-mile deep canyon with lots of exposed outcrops and…, well, you get the idea. Okay, seriously, lightning is both dangerous and unpredictable. Before attempting anything that requires you to be outside during an electrical storm, it behooves…

Sunsets are red because the sky is blue

A sunset myth If your goal is a colorful sunset/sunrise and you have to choose between pristine or polluted air, which would you choose? If you said clean air, you’re in the minority. You’re also right. But despite some pretty obvious evidence to the contrary, it seems that the myth that a colorful sunset requires lots of particles in the air persists. If particles in…

Bracketing digital style

Film shooters used to bracket high dynamic range scenes because there was no way to know if they’d nailed the tricky exposure until the film was processed. For some reason this bracketing approach has carried over to digital photography, when it’s a complete waste of storage and shutter clicks (not to mention all the unnecessary images to wade through at home) that shortens the…

Photographic reality: The missing dimension

“Photography’s gift isn’t the ability to reproduce reality, it’s the ability to expand it.” (The sixth and final installment of my series on photographic reality.) So far I’ve written about focus, dynamic range, confining borders, motion, and time, but I think most obvious (and also I’m afraid most overlooked) difference separating the camera’s vision from our own is the missing dimension: depth. Photography attempts to render a…

Photographic reality: Expand time

“Photography’s gift isn’t the ability to reproduce your reality, it’s the ability to expand it.” (The fifth installment of my series on photographic reality.) There’s probably no better example of the difference between a camera’s reality and yours than the way we handle motion. In my previous post I compared the camera’s ability to accumulate light to the serial, real-time processing of seamless instants we humans do….

Photographic reality: Framing infinity

  “Photography’s gift isn’t the ability to reproduce reality, it’s the ability to expand it.” (The second installment of my series on photographic reality.) If you’ve ever tried to point out to someone a small detail in nature that pleases you, perhaps you’ve experienced a conversation like this: You: “Look at that!” Friend: “What?” You: “Those leaves—look at the frost on those leaves.” Friend: “What leaves?” You:…

Photographic reality: Your camera’s vision

“Photography’s gift isn’t the ability to reproduce your reality, it’s the ability to expand it.” (The first installment of my series on photographic reality.) When I hear a photographer say “That’s exactly what I saw when I was there,” I cringe. Not only is capturing human reality in a photograph impossible (really), attempting to do so is so limiting. I’m a strong advocate of “honest” photography,…

Poppies!

I love photographing poppies. Just sayin’….. What is macro photography? The generally accepted definition of a macro image is one in which the subject is at least as large on the sensor as it is in reality. When we photograph an expansive landscape, we’re cramming the entire scene (with the help of a carefully crafted lens) onto a 24mm x 36mm sensor (that’s 35mm full…

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst

A regrettable reality of my life is that the best conditions for photography are the absolute worst conditions to be outside. Fortunately, I was hardened by decades of Giants games at Candlestick Park, the coldest place on Earth. As a photographer, I continue to embrace my mantra for warmth at the ‘Stick: Too much is always better than not enough. For me, cold weather photography…

Reflections on the polarizer

Polarizer 101 Photographers who think a polarizer is only for darkening the sky miss opportunities to saturate color and and emphasize texture in shade or overcast. Even worse, some photographers screw on a polarizer without understanding how it works, mistakenly believing that merely having it attached is sufficient. The amount of polarization any composition calls for is a creative decision that can make or…