I was recently interviewed by Marc Silber on the topic of Landscape & Nature photography for his online video series Advancing Your Photography! Marc has talked with some truly amazing photographers who I greatly respect and I was humbled to be asked to take part in his great video series. The video is only 9 minutes long and full of tips. I hope you find it informative and entertaining. If you enjoy it be sure to let Marc know by commenting on his blog to encourage him to invite other great nature, landscape and travel photographers.
Earlier this week I was forwarded a link to a blog post highlighting “X number of most breathtaking landscape photos” and every single image seemed to be post-processed in an over powering manner. The question arose in my mind, “Is digital post-production killing photography?” I then dissected the question I posed to myself… What assumptions was I making about nature and landscape photography? What sense of “normal” was I comparing these images to? What roll does digital post-processing play versus traditional film post-processing?
My initial thought to myself was a gut reaction to my personal dislike for the creative choices made in many of the images contained in the post I was pointed to. I’m all for individual interpretation in nature and landscape photography, after all it is the individual interpretation we bring to the scene that differentiates our creative vision from others. I then remembered many comments I’ve seen by commenters on this blog and other forums reflecting the common myth that our cameras some how capture a pure version of a nature or landscape subject. Most commonly Ansel Adams is invoked as the paragon of nature and landscape purism in such debates. I’ve always found this amusing knowing Ansel in his own right so heavily manipulated his images in the dark room. Yet somehow this is unknown or memory of this information has been lost by many photographers. Since his passing, the work of Ansel Adams has been placed on a very high pedestal.
Then yesterday I stumbled across a BBC program from 1983 titled “Master Photographers” on YouTube and there is a great 4 part interview with Ansel Adams where he so eloquently and clearly states how important pre-visualization and “intentional manipulation” is to his work. Pay special attention to Part II of this series containing the following quotes:
At 50 sec:
“None of my images are realistic in terms of values… Â it’s intentional manipulation”
At 4 min:
“The negative is the composer’s score, all the information is there. The print is the performance, so you interpret the score at various aesthetic emotional levels, but never far enough away dividing the original concept.”
Regarding the digital revolution that he recognized as being on the horizon…
At 7 min:
“The thing that excites me is that in not too many years we’re going to have a entirely new medium of expression with the electronic image. I’ve seen what can happen to a print reproduced by the  laser scanner and how that is enhanced and that is just the beginning.   … and I know the potential is there and I know its going to be wonderful.  Well in that sense the negatives for these photographs as an example will take the place of a fresh kabal they are….personal or some early composer will then be reinterpreted through a fresh medium and I think that is marvelous.”
I highly recommend watching all (4) four videos and keep the knowledge shared in your back pocket as you think about your own photography. Part II of these videos is pure gold and is worthy of listening to often.
On my recent trip to New Mexico I went out of my way in the hope I could photograph the Egg Factory in the Bisti Badlands under some dramatic lighting conditions. Unfortunately for me the weather forecast changed quickly on my drive from “20% chance of rain” to 100% chance of extreme wind gusts up to 50 mph. This experience was a great reminder that Mother Nature seldom works on your schedule.
Unfortunately for me I started my hike with my 70-200mm lens on my camera body versus the 24mm tilt-shift I had as my spare in my camera bag. I realized this half way out on my hike. Given the wind conditions there was no chance I was going to swap lenses in the field. Given the conditions and my available lens option I opted to scout the area and make the most of my time in the raging wind tempest that was. I tried my hand at a few photos, but I ultimately think I got better photos from my iPhone. I’ll post those in the near future.
I should note this was the windiest conditions I’ve ever hiked in. If I had my mouth open just slightly I had wind blowing out my nose. A super odd sensation when you’re trying to breath air in as you’re breathing heavy from a fast paced hike.
Here’s a great video with some classic famous quotes relating to art. You might just get a laugh out of it and if you’re lucky find inspiration. Enjoy and if you have any favorite quotes that aren’t in the video be sure to share in the comments section of this post.
This weekend I watched an incredibly inspiring photography documentary titled Manufactured Landscapes (photos taken during the making of his photo book Manufactured Landscapes). Manufactured Landscapes is a 2006 documentary on the work of Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky who photographs landscapes created from civilizations waste, large and small. I’ve seen the photographic work of Edward Burtynsky in the past at some local galleries and was impressed, but seeing this film where he discusses his inspiration, challenges and epiphanies was awe-inspiring.
If you’re a photographer who appreciates either fine art and/or art that raises awareness to environmental challenges you’ll find this documentary fascinating. I was particularly impressed with the vision, dedication and ability to create visually engaging photographs from subjects most would turn a blind eye to. Definitely a must see photo documentary if you’re a landscape and nature photographer.
A few weeks back I was hunting for music that I could use on a web based video and had a challenging time. As a photographer who cares about rights to my work being respected, I felt it was important to share that same respect to musicians whose work I wanted to use. Searching and gaining permission to use music for my photo video proved to be a huge challenge and got me to respect the Creative Commons initiative all the more.
While getting permission to use All Rights Reserved creative content is as simple as asking permission it can be frustrating. I’m normally a very patient person, but when I had my video ready to go and I found the music I wanted to use it seemed like an eternity to hear back from the artist. Eventually the artist wrote me back 48 hours later and gave me permission to use any of his work in the future regardless of current licensing designation. I was lucky and found a very cool artist to collaborate with.
Ultimately I burned a lot of time searching for music. It would seem that there is a huge opening for a site to be created matching artists who want to share their work in conjunction with other artists for promotional and non/pseudo-commercial purposes. To me having a directory that matches musicians and photographers to use each others work for mutual promotion seems like a win-win proposition. Until my dream of such a directory becomes a reality below are 5 copyleft resources to search for music and 5 royalty-free stock music resources.
An important note:
Music designated as “No Derivative Works license” cannot be used for photo videos as explained on this Creative Commons page Legal Music for Videos.
So even if you find music you like with this CC license you’ll still need to retain approval from the artist, so build in approval time as you plan your videos release.
“Under CC licenses, synching the music to images amounts to transforming the music, so you can’t legally use a song under a CC No Derivative Works license in your video.“
Film Music by Moby
“‘film music’, is for independent and non-profit filmmakers, film students, and anyone in need of free music for their independent, non-profit film, video, or short.
If you want to use it in a commercial film or short then you can apply for an easy license, with any money that’s generated being given to the humane society.”
The past few years online have been an interesting ride and things are only going to get more interesting thanks to Social Media. We are all consumers and now through Social Media the strength of our voice and influence is amplified by the size of our networks (see my previous post 4 Metrics of Social Media Impact). On the other side of the coin many of us are also our own company and brand, this is particularly true for photographers.
Social Media is both loved and feared. How you feel about Social Media for one depends on how much knowledge you have about it and secondly how you use it. Do you use it as a consumer or a company? More times than not we use it as both but with a tendency of one versus the other. Social Media is very easy to fear and several businesses small and large fear it to the bone. Sometimes this fear is warranted and other times its not.
I had an interesting experience with my wife just the other day. We had her car in the shop for some repairs. We were on our 4th visit bringing the car back in a two week time-frame for the same problem. My wife was extremely frustrated with the auto repair shop. Promises had been made and various employees were giving her different information about cost. Did we owe another $700 on top of the initial $500 spent even though they had told us it was guaranteed work? A communication breakdown happened, but by the time we talked to the manager in person we were told that there would be no cost to our most recent repair. The manager stated to us more than once, “Customer Service is important to us and we want you to be happy.”
I did not envy the manager of this shop eating $700 in parts and labor. He seemed like a sincere guy, but his statement and delivery were different than times past. In the age of Yelp neighborhood repair shops live and die by customer reviews. Did he look up that my wife is active in rating neighborhood shops? Did he know that my wife had been relaying her displeasure through sites like Facebook? Check out this video on the relevance of Social Media and read on…
As a photographer I always strive to capture the beauty of a scene I’m photographing and often it is more than possible to do so. Still Photography by its nature is revealing, yet also not so revealing. Still Photography by definition has its limits displaying a split second of time or a short duration of time if using a slow shutter speed. Freezing time has its merits lettings others see something they’ve missed and/or wish to remember. Here in San Francisco, California the weather is both fleeting and unpredictable. Having the perfect weather conditions, lighting and ability to be in the right place at the right time all are dependencies when capturing fog rolling through the Golden Gate Bridge. But is this as good as it gets?
Foggy San Francisco & Golden Gate Bridge Sunrise
When looking at this photo are you missing anything? I can assure you you’re missing out on the adrenaline rush I got running to get in place to take this photo, but as a viewer sight is only part of the experience. Our other senses provide so much more and its for this reason you always hear photographers repeat over and over “enjoying the experience behind the camera is as important as getting your photo”. Smell, Taste and Touch have yet to be addressed in the world of photography and for most subjects that’s just fine! Audio on the other hand can really enhance the viewing experience of a photograph or series of photographs. Adding motion into the mix and you add yet another dimension that transports viewers to what you’re capturing. Is it all too much? For some purists it will likely be argued “yes”, but as time goes on we may find Still Photography relies less and less on being “still” let alone silent.
For your viewing and listening enjoyment 30 seconds of birds, wind, fog horns and ambient traffic noise heard while photographing fog rolling through the Golden Gate Bridge into the San Francisco Bay. While this looks as though its just audio put to a still image this is in fact video so watch carefully for the movement in the fog.
Jim Goldstein’s Tips on Landscape & Nature Photography
