The Right Time. The Right Place

Two critical factors separate forgettable photographs from unforgettable ones:  timing and location.  This is one lesson others have taught me about landscapes and nature photography.  Beginners wonder why they can never recreate great photographs when they are on the trail around prominent, photogenic landscape features; and my friends wonder why I have to wake up at five in the morning or overnight it somewhere with my camera.

A general rule of thumb is to position yourself in a breathtaking location, and wait until the hours of sunrise and/or sunset.  Light is generally more pleasing to the eye during these 'golden hours.'  And, in most locations (especially in the desert) those hours mean shifts in temperature and usually small cloud formations.  Nothing is quite as dull as a hazy, bright sunny sky with nothing to look at.

Just this weekend, I hiked up into the Huachuca Mountains in southeast Arizona, near the Mexican border.  I caught the standard, and pleasing (and usually totally predictable in the desert) sunset over the Patagonia Mountains some fifty miles west of me across the San Rafael Valley, a beautiful, completely desolate wilderness in the high desert.

What I was aiming for was to catch the standard, beautiful Southwest U.S. sunrise, but my timing was off.  Being the high desert in winter-time, I suffered through fog with gale-force winds ripping across the small saddle I camped out in.  Not to mention the over 8,000 foot elevation gave me mild hypoxia and made it very difficult to get a fire going.  So, after a night of struggling to stay warm, I stepped out of the tent into a blanket of fog... morning sunrise ruined.  I trudged back down to the trail head when I stepped below the cloud layers.

 Like I said, timing, and location.

Hiatus

Unfortunately, duty calls, and I will be unavailable starting tomorrow, October 24 until around Christmas time.  I have several schools I have to attend and will be unavailable during that time.  However, if you do wish to schedule something with me around Christmas, I will be able to.  I just do not have the exact dates available.

Thanks!

Photo Shoot During Break in the Storm

It's one of the oldest clichés around: You have to play the cards you are dealt. It’s also an uncompromising truth … especially for the photographer. Such was the case this past Monday with Dawn, Kelly, and daughters. Dawn had set up this shoot, working around various schedules with her family and myself. We had come to decide on Monday, possibly the only day we’d be able to fit it in with the hectic schedules we all had. Well, God, in His inscrutable wisdom, decided to park a tropical depression over northern Florida and send rain-band after rain-band our way that Columbus Day weekend.

Not wanting to waste the opportunity and following the advice of many photographers who have had tremendous photos come from, not despite, horrendous weather, I kept an eye on the radar and decided to push through.

Thankfully, no rain spoiled our day. The wind, on the other hand was nearly catastrophic. Wind played havoc with my subjects’ hair, even surprising me by ending up blurred on some shots due to the low light (necessitating slower shutter speed). Wind also destroyed my ability to use flash lighting during this cloudy day. I had a shoot-through umbrella positioned camera-left on my first site. After a few frames to nail the flash stop setting, a wind gust took my stand, flash, and umbrella parasailing across Forsythe Park. In the melee, my radio sync receiver was broken and with no back-up, my ability to use flash was gone.
Despite these challenges, I managed to use natural light to get enough decent shots to satisfy.

This shoot taught me some valuable lessons:

1. Always treat every challenge as an opportunity.

2. Savannah, especially Forsyth Park, is so much more photogenic when overcast, than when subjected to harsh sunlight.

3. When dealing with low-light, don’t forget to change your ISO to a higher setting to avoid blurry movement.

4. Never use Aperture-Priority mode with moving subjects!!! Made that mistake when shooting the family walking through the park (through various levels of shade). The A-Priority mode submarined my shutter speed and ruined many shots because of blurred movement.

5. Be grateful for Photoshop and a modicum of post-processing ability.

Special Offer to Ferguson Ave. Baptist Church

Brothers and sisters from FAB. Welcome to my humble little site.

Now through October 21, I am offering a complimentary 2-hour photo session for you and your family. It's first-come, first-served basis. For details, please see the "FAB Church Offer" page listed on the top right.

-Under Construction-