Over the years, I’ve given a great deal of though about the process of image creation and the different categories of images that define the photographs that we make. I’ve written about it in my latest Photoletariat post, which you can read here.
Let’s face it, times have never been tougher for photographers and others in our industry. The recession put us through a tailspin, and new technologies and business trends have turned some traditional income models completely upside down. In order to remain successful, we need to adapt to the new economy and face the future with fresh ideas.
You can read my article, 7 Things Photographers Can Do To Navigate The Economy’s Rough Waters over at The Photoletariat.
One day I started wondering how much influence subject matter has on an individual’s compositional style. For example, what happens when you take a mountain photographer out of the mountains? What kinds of images will he create?
The results intrigued me when I compared an urban landscape with a mountain landscape that I shot at two different times in my career.
Read the full post at The Photoletariat.
How do you complete a winter photo shoot in the middle of spring? Simple. You remake winter.
I was recently hired to do a skate skiing shoot here in Anchorage, but under our increasing hours of sunshine, the snow was quickly disappearing from the trails. Determined not to be beaten by the warm weather and lose an assignment due to lack of snow, I took a shovel with me to the photo shoot last Friday evening.
It ended up being a good call, because when I got to the location with my two models, we were faced with a thin cover of melting mush over asphalt. Not exactly the kind of thing you want for a ski shoot. We spent an hour recreating winter by shoveling and and packing snow down along a 150-foot section of the trail. Our hard work paid off, because we were able to get the assignment done and even received positive response from the client after they reviewed the shots.
Here’s a photo of me at my post while photographing this year’s Iditarod start. Apparently I was overtaken by a wave of excitement, which had me cheering instead of shooting. Note, however, that I am not standing on or above the last step.
Starting today, I’ll be writing as a featured contributor on The Photoletariat, a brand new online photography publication that’s designed to educate, inspire and connect photographers to the ever changing photo industry.
Despite the vast changes to our industry that have been brought on by the recent economy and by the advancement of the digital age, the power of the still image remains strong. In fact, our appetite for visual imagery is only increasing with the development of devices like smartphones and iPads. As the audience for our work grows, we as photographers need to stay on the forefront of technology and technique if we are to succeed in this new age.
Whether you’re an emerging pro, an amateur stock shooter or a new photographer who, despite dire warnings from articles such as this one, are still driven to enter the fray, there is something for you over at The Photoletariat. In addition to my regular posts, the site will feature news, tutorials, tips and exposure to work that you might not have discovered on your own.
Come on by and have a look! You can read my fist post here.
Along with the complete redesign that I just did on my website: www.danbaileyphoto.com, I’ve also been refining the look of this blog and adding some new features. The latest is the heading on the sidebar called “Essential Gear for Outdoor Photographers,” where I’ve added links to some of the gear and software that I use.
Just as with the B&H Photo link, I receive a small commission on products that you buy from Adobe and Amazon when you click through this site. In reality, though, the commission is quite small and it would take a huge amount of purchases for me to make anything resembling a sizable income.
The bottom line is that I’m not looking to get rich from readers who click through my blog. Instead, my goal is to offer personal and professional recommendations on some of the essential equipment that I use every day in my photography business, that I find useful, or that I simply know are worthwhile products.
As outdoor photographers, we all need gear that performs well and gets the job done efficiently. In my years as a working pro, I’ve dragged alot of equipment through the dirt (sometimes literally!) and spent countless hours working at my computer editing and processing images. Through much trial and error, I’ve found the gear that holds up to the test and meets my own personal demands.
I’ve listed a few of those items over on the sidebar, take a minute to look them over. They work for me, maybe you’ll decide that they’ll work for you in your photography as well.
Edit: July 1010. I just compiled a list of some of the top rated photography gear, which includes digital slr cameras, point and shoots, camera bags, tripods and portable media storage drives. As a service to other outdoor photographers, I’ve posted the list here. It’s by no means a complete list, but it may be a good place to start of you’re ready to upgrade and buy some new photo equipment.
Happy shooting.
Last week I had the opportunity to shoot some aerial photos while flying over the Ruth Glacier, which lies in the heart of the Alaska Range inside Denali National Park. The Ruth contains some of Alaska’s most impressive peaks, and on a clear day, the views are absolutely stunning.
The new website is here. Completely redesigned with updated image galleries.
Check it out!
Yesterday I photographed the Nagsragmiut Dancers of Anaktuvuk Pass, Alaska at a Native Community Foundation event here in Anchorage.
It was the perfect opportunity to test out the high ISO capabilities of my new Nikon D700. I’d done some test shots with the D700 at home at ISO 2000, and had been very impressed by the camera’s ability to produce a sharp image with very little noise, so I was excited to see how it performed in a fast breaking, low light situation like this one.
Using fast fixed lenses, I set the camera to “Auto ISO” mode, which causes the camera to automatically select an ISO rating based on the minimum shutter speed that you select in the camera’s menu. The light was pretty dim inside the convention hall ballroom, so even with wide apertures, I ended up shooting everything at speeds of 3200 and higher.
Those speeds were definitely out-of-bounds territory for any of my previous digital bodies, as well as any color reversal film I have ever used in the past. Shooting at 3200 with slide film or even with my D300 would produce tremendously unacceptable amounts of grain and noise, rendering the images shot under such low light conditions all but useless. Not so with the D700’s amazing CMOS sensor and EXPEED image processing. Under close inspection, the camera produced images that had less grain and more sharpness than most 200 speed color films, not to mention the extremely wide latitude of color information that’s captured in full size 14-bit RAW files.
This example was shot at IS0 3200 with a Nikkor 85mm f1.8 lens, at 1/100, f.2. The only adjustments I made were simple recovery of the highlights and blacks in Adobe Camera RAW. Below is the same image at 100% full resolution, cropped so that you can see the details on the drummer’s face. (Click on the image to see the full size version.)
Although I wireless flashes on occasion, most of my work is done under natural and existing light. This is partly the case because I’m a very active photographer. I’m always moving around looking for new vantage points, and trying to deal with fixed lighting sources is just not practical. Even handholding a softbox flash off the the side presents limitations in many of the situations where I find myself shooting.
With this kind of resolving power, the D700 opens up a whole new world of shooting possibilities that would have previously been impossible. Where before I tended to shy away from shooting inside, I can now photograph with full confidence in indoor locations. I might even have to change my tag line to “Indoor and Outdoor Adventure Photography.”
I just wish I’d had the D700 on my last canyon trip!
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