Blogodocious ramblings of a landscape photographer living in Maine.
Teaching Photography for Canon in the Parks and the American Parks Network in Acadia: Debrief
"Great Meadow Birch Impressions" walking around on a coffee break with my 24 ts-e and black glass making shaky pics-
Disclaimer: The following are only personal observations made as a subcontractor and needn't be confused with the opinions of any one company or organization. No photography noobs were harmed in the creation of this content.
What a gas! What a blast! What a great bunch of guys (the other instructors) and for 99.0 percent of the participants- what a great bunch of eager and open minded students! I wanted to tell you about the whole affair as compared to my regular and usual life, as it really was a wicked great adventure! First of all the other instructors: there were 8, at 40 years old I was the oldest by at least a few years- the youngest was a nearly graduated college student at 22, then there was some adventure sports shooters: climbed Half-Dome in Yosemite (the steep way), then there was a guy who shot for mags in Vegas and claims to have shot pretty much everything in Vegas- which is a pretty good claim and must have made for some memorable scenes, then there was one of the best birders in America- a guy who could identify anything in the natural world who sounds way more useful than Siri on the Iphone anyday, another action sports shooter who works for like a production company that shoots deep powder skiing and such in B.C. and does a lot of vid- so he was kind of the go-to-guy for the video classes but I do vid too so I taught some of those, but he was way taller than me and better looking, anyways. There were a couple New York, New York shooters: one who works for one of the premiere head-shot photographers in the world and is a multi accomplished artist on many levels, and the other an unbelievable street shooter who makes ridiculously amazing candids on the subways and sidewalks and nature shots and teaches, etc. And as far as the participants were concerned: they were everybody you could imagine from folks who could hardly use a cellphone camera all the way up to advanced shooters who pretty much just wanted to check out some of the gear. So from old time film shooters who have made pictures for fifty years to many people who have never even hardly held a dslr in their hands. They were all over the map! The bottom line is that they all loved cameras, and they were in the right place at the right time.
Typical coffee break: specimen is some crazy hairy caterpillar.
Right so lemme give you some background on this- Canon and the American Parks Network has been doing an outreach program for a number of years now (I think it might be 7 or so but don't hold me to that) whereby anybody can come take a Free photography or video class at any level of experience and can use free Canon gear (we just hold drivers license and credit card during class. The participants are split into groups dependent on experience and the question for that is usually something like: if you understand manual mode shooting and are comfortable using your camera then you are advanced, if you want to shoot your camera more in the Av mode or Tv mode (S for Nikon shooters) and want to learn about maybe the histogram then you are intermediate, etc. Canon benefits on this of course by exposure of the gear to the world (they bring nearly everything they make: 5DIII's, 5DII's, 7D's, 60D's, T3i's, T2i's, some point and shoots for the kids, and lenses from 14mm rectilinear through the Ts-e's, 8-15 fish, all the kit lenses, 16-35 2.8's, 17-40 f/4.0's, 50 1.2's!, 85 1.2's!!, 50 and 60 and 100is and 180 macro's, 70-200 f/2.8's L IS USM II, 70-200 f/4.0's, 70-300 do's and 70-300 L's, a 500, and more stuff. And the American Parks Network benefits from the exposure as well just without the glass.
So initially I was pretty nervous as to how I would fit in with the guys and how I would do as a teacher as I've never really done that too much up to this point. I fit in pretty well I guess because I'm young at heart although the frisbee breaks definitely strained a couple of muscles that I haven't used as much as I should have recently. And I did well as an instructor I feel because I've always had an insatiable desire for knowledge. A lot of these guys went to school for this- I went to school for Jazz, the right choice at the time I thought, but since my reinvention as a person I'm completely self-learned in photography from the internets and experience. So my point is dear reader: I'm just like you.
More showing the caterpillar some love. (By the way when you're a pro you don't need to put your lens hood on straight.)
The most fun and exciting people to teach I found were the intermediates: people who already knew how to turn their cameras on and had heard the words aperture and shutter speed before etc, I could fill their brains up with camera stuff and see great surprised looks on their faces upon touching on concepts like making white balance changes- I would run for them and get them to drag their shutters to make the race car pan blur shot and show them the effects of open aperture and teach manual exposure and have them practice in different lighting environments, etc. The advanced were always a little more challenging as you could see the effects of ego setting in and I had to really try harder to make a personal connection with them and look them in the eyes before they opened up to learning it seemed, and the very beginners sometimes were the kind of people who had a really difficult time filling out the forms at the tent to register and kept accidentally calling their significant others on cellphones and stuff like that. Which was pretty funny.
Here's one for ya: at one point during registration for one of the classes a very nice but particularly effervescent lady in some really unusually interesting clothings came up to me to ask some questions about her lens: she thought it wasn't focussing well, she wanted to show me a particular image on her camera so she began scrolling her back wheel to find it- and she scrolled and scrolled and scrolled and scrolled (I'm not kidding) it was going on for maybe about 50 seconds or a minute when I finally looked around at the other guys to see if anybody was seeing this, she scrolled and she scrolled and she scrolled, (she had lots of pictures on that card I guess, either that or she'd already gone by it at least a few times) finally she found it- I swear it took maybe like 2 or 3 minutes and lo-and-behold! It was sharp. Yikers, I'm thinking something like well what's the problem? So one of the other guys finally picked up on this and explained that the older Canon fd lenses won't focus well to infinity on the new EOS system= which was news to me, and satisfied her desire to hear of the potential that perhaps her equipment was failing her instead of her own decisions perhaps failing her imagery- but the point is- wow that was a lot of scrolling! I mean you should have been there, the wheel was making those clickety click noises and she was going and going and going-
So, see- I had always had the impression that people had a better understanding of using their cameras- not to say that the scrolling lady didn't: she sure knew how to scroll! But what I guess I mean is that I see so many DSLR's in the world with red rings on the lenses etc, and it seems to me that the user base is extremely avid, but the state of the nation in photographic comprehension really seems to be lacking in comparison to my sense of the proliferation of gear. Here's the thing: one of my beginner students said she loves to shoot Iphone pictures but wants to learn the DSLR because her boyfriend shoots DSLR. But she totally wasn't responding to me at all and I tried hard to connect with her, she seemed completely happy the whole time but I really felt that she just wasn't getting it- so in this case I'm almost certain that a DSLR would not necessarily make her pictures better. Some people just really love making pictures on an Iphone or whatever and it's not important to try to convert them- the bottom line should always be to enjoy photography and make the pictures that you want to make. On whatever device you feel the most comfortable. Some people showed up with killer pro gear but just were never introduced to the next concepts or the possibilities and potentials of a DSLR: i.e. they're shooting jpeg's in AWB in program mode unaware of Ev comp, Etc, etc. Then there were the kids who were all over the cams and had no problem at all- digital menus to these people were as simple to comprehend as a twist top soda cap, they're gonna be Killin it in a few years! Right- been rambling for a while- gotta wrap it up:
When I set up my webby site to sell prints this past winter a number of my respected and highly regarded friends said to me that "that's great but these days more people want to make that picture themselves than buy it" or something like that- I initially balked at that and said something along the lines of putting that where one shouldn't etc, but the more I think on it and it becomes obvious to me- they are right and I'd be truly happy to show someone how to make the pictures that they want to make- so long as I'm compensated well for my time, because I think it will only benefit us all as a community more to have a better standard of imagery and photographic understanding- and it never needs to be about the competition because as competent photographic practitioner's we should always be able to differentiate and interpret the same scene just through our unique approaches and individuality.
The bottom line is that I definitely intend to embrace teaching with open arms and I'll update the old webbysite here to reflect that but the main thing is that I love photography and would only love it even more if I can help other people love it more. Or something like that. Ayuh.
Thanks for looking, and don't forget to read your manuals you noobs! :) -Nate from Maine Usa.
One more-
"Great Meadow Grass and Birch" Walking around with a Canon 70-200 f/2.8 IS USM II (I must have you!)
Teaching Photography with the Canon in the Parks Crew
What's left after the morning class left. Canon EF 8-15mm f/4 L USM Fisheye
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-EF-8-15mm-f-4-L-USM-Fisheye-Lens-Review.aspx
I'll give a proper debrief in a bit when I get some proper time for it. In the meantime here's some snaps from the week so far. What's particularly cool is trying out some of the lenses that are around on this roadshow. If it tells you anything about my personality I picked the 8-15 fish first, even though I would probably never actually choose it for my own kit. The 65 macro 1x5 is particularly daunting and crazy to use, it's the kind of thing that you think sounds like a great idea when you read about it but in person it's a kicking and screaming mule that has the power but is hard to harness- I wasn't on a tripod for any of it and would heartily recommend using live-view in conjunction with this lens.
Frog eye really big, not cropped, looks like a fish mouth. Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x Macro
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-MP-E-65mm-1-5x-Macro-Lens-Review.aspx
Spider at lunch.Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x Macro
I've been having a great time teaching a whole variety of skill levels where some people have been shooting film for 50 years and just need some help with the menus to people who have never shot a dslr before and I'm running by giving them a shutter speed priority lesson.
J-bo giving the Tv priority mode demo. He likes the pink sunglasses.
There are some particularly meaningful students like this cool British 11 year old boy named Matt who's gonna be killin it someday and then sometimes there slightly more difficult students but I haven't freaked out on anybody yet although one guy wanted to argue with me regarding reciprocity failure insisting it didn't exist with long exposure and I was begging to differ but that's not going to benefit the group in anyway so I didn't pursue that one but come on now!- I've since thought of a different way to explain my interpretation of what I was trying to say to him.
One of my first favorite students. With the 50 1.8 (the plastic fantastic!), (great walk around lens).
Check out this cool guy with the 85 1.2. Debatably the juiciest portrait lens in the line-up.
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-EF-85mm-f-1.2-L-II-USM-Lens-Review.aspx
Some more random images-
Pre-class orientation with Larson.
T3i's beeping auto-focus, oh yeah.
Busted sniping with the 100-400.
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-EF-100-400mm-f-4.5-5.6-L-IS-USM-Lens-Review.aspx
Yet Michael still sticks the landing!
Can't remember what this flower is called right now- 180 Macro at Wild Garden's of Acadia.
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-EF-180mm-f-3.5-L-USM-Macro-Lens-Review.aspx
Right then. Well that's all for now. Hope you're well and save a place for me- I'll be back. -Nate.
Finding Marylin
"Marylin"
Hey there, gotta write this down before I completely forget because now it was 4 days ago and already the memory is nearly a memory of itself. Right then, this isn't really all that important other than it's an example of putting yourself out there. So it was early last Sunday morning and it was uber-duber foggy at 05:30 so I was all psyched to get out there and make some ethereal pictures of something or other, but I had no real plan, so I just went looking along a stretch that would seem to hold the most possibilities. I stopped at a couple different places for this and that, then I stopped at a particularly favorite vantage point and began visualizing something to make a picture of and it all sucked except just over there was a man and a young boy mucking around the boulders so I went up to them and asked if I could make their picture and they accepted and I went on to try and make some small talk and reassure them that I wasn't just some malevolent crazy guy and I made their picture a few times and they were nice and we parted ways.
"Bart and His Boy"
I went on to make a couple more crap images of nothing really important and then hopped back into the Golf to look for something else and around the next corner I spotted this lady with absolutely striking silver and black and white hair standing on the popples facing the ocean and the fog and my jaw probably dropped because that was the picture that was here the whole time. So I pulled over and scampered over the boulders down to where she was and said something like: "good morning, could you do me the favor of letting me make your picture- or something like that." Although what she probably heard was something more along the lines of "HAaaaR Raaar Ez GAd Attack Dispose" or something like that because she looked at me in a truly untrusting way and said something like " I don't know, how many are you going to take?" or something and I went on to say that the chances are that I will completely screw up the first picture so probably at least ten, but that it wouldn't hurt a bit". So at this point she allowed me and my camera to enter her space and I set about making a mockery of my passion for photography, missing focus and blowing exposure, etc, etc- and I was doing this the whole while trying to make small talk to make her feel like I wasn't a serial accoster, and wouldn't you know she starts singing! Marylin is from Texas and she sings gospel and she started singing in an absolutely undeniably beautiful voice "Jesus is his name"- spreading her arms wide and leaning her head back and singing deep from within, suddenly it was obvious that even if I didn't make a picture at any point this morning that I was rewarded in spades by meeting this incredible 50 something woman of deep character and beautiful soul, and we talked about faith and the twelve step program and other stuff, and here I should put in a disclaimer that at no point did I entertain the notion of anything improper because I dearly love my partner Sophie, whatever, where was I- right: my point is that I really love the facet of the camera being an opportunity to interject yourself into a scene where you ordinarily otherwise would have no right being. There have been a bunch of experiences that I have enjoyed because I was there to make a picture, it's almost like a passport to life sometimes, not that anyone should need an excuse like a camera to experience life and the world, but it sure does make it more memorable!
"Marylin in the Fog II"
I just wanted to write this up because as a landscape shooter my conversations are always very one sided when I'm talking to the rocks, so it really is an eye opening and interesting experience to interact with the humans from time to time. I should make a point to remember that.
So with that in mind- charge your batteries, format your memory card, and get out there and experience some life through your viewfinder! Good stuff! Thank you my megapixels! And have a nice day my friends -Nate.
P.s. I'm not advocating trespassing or getting all up in someones face or this that or the other thing, you still have to honor the conventions of society, just saying don't be afraid to make that picture when you see it, you might just have your own memorable experience.
Every one of these photos has been photoshopped and or developed with Lightroom!
"Summer Fog Fields" 8/12/12
Hi there folkies- so I took some time to check out a local fine art fair this weekend that I was considering doing back in the spring but decided against it at the last minute (I'll do some of these eventually but having already experienced it through selling blown glass and I'd rather focus on galleries for the time being) where was I, right, so I was checking out some of the other photographers work there and gauging what the competition would be and all when I heard this lady photographer exclaim from her booth to some passersby that her photos "have not been photoshopped" that "this is exactly what it looked like". And I started to frown at hearing this in the biggest of ways- it really actually made me a little bit crazy inside listening to her because there is No Way on this Earth that those scenes looked the way she was presenting them when she shot them, they were totally saturated and affected and she wasn't shooting film. Now maybe she's got her jpeg settings customized to boost saturation and contrast- a lot, or she has a completely miscalibrated monitor, or maybe she just uses Gimp or the Jasc Software version of Photoshop, what's it called "Paintshop" or something? Anyways, here was another person, a photographer of all people!, who was spreading the misinformation that Photoshop is somehow a bad thing. I'm sure she's not a bold faced (or is it bald faced?) liar in that she doesn't use Photoshop, but if she is representing supposed "fine art" in photographs I would hope she has some kind of control of her development process.
For the layman here's what we do as "fine art" photographers: we spend hours agonizing (sometimes blissfully) over the development of the image. Back when I was using a 3 megapixel point-and-miss camera I already knew that taking the picture was only part of the process and that was twelve years ago. Since that time the digital darkroom has changed and evolved to the point where we can have the potential for virtuoso control of developing the digital negative. Here's a great quote from father Ansel that sums it up perfectly: "the negative is the score, and the print is the performance". Just like the old time film guys did back in the day and some who still shoot film still do now, after the capture they would spend hours in the darkroom aspiring to control the transformation of a virtual place in time to it's representation as a fine art achievement. And that's what we still do today just without the red light and the chemicals, etc.
Some sports shooters will shoot jpeg's, actually probably all of them, because they shoot such a volume of images and upload them between quarters or periods to there contractors servers, and then the images will be edited and developed, but everybody else shoots RAW. And if this is news to you and you have a camera- flip that dial in the quality mode to RAW right away- because it gives you the best digital negative with the most information to use "in post". The thing is that the RAW files come out of the camera a little flat, which is to say lacking some contrast and needing some selective sharpening and maybe some curves adjustments, etc, -trying not to get carried away in the geek talk, where was I- So you can either apply a preset or do your own developing, and this is in my opinion where the real fun starts. Some of my friends in the interwebs (I'm sure they're real people because I've actually met some of them)- will spend upwards of 50 hours developing an image, which has to be just about the record, but the point is is that every one of us who takes photography seriously takes pains to fully realize the potential of the vision through every means possible, which includes developing the image. Photoshop isn't mandatory- there are a myriad of programs that will allow post imaging processing of the capture including Lightroom 4 (my favorite), Apple Aperture (I put this one after Lightroom on purpose), Photoshop Elements (which is a truly affordable consumer approachable tool that you can get for like 70 bucks), Gimp (free photoshop), Apple's Iphoto, Google's Picassa, a bunch of awesome apps for your mobile devices like Snapseed and Camera+, etc, etc. Pick one, use it, make your pictures better! But we should rarely let the camera make the decisions for us and we should take a proactive approach to realizing and controlling our imagery.
I was explaining this whole hullaballoo to my glassblower friend who is also an old time shooter and darkroom guy- and I was saying to him that this lady owed it to all of us to represent photography as an embassador to other photographers when she is dealing with the public like this- to not slander the the rest of us who use digital developing as an integral part of our work flow, even if she has an alternative process that she may be proud of (here again I'm doubting that). Ken, my glassblower friend claimed I was over reacting. But I'm "stickin to my guns", that lady was crazy and her photos were bad, and she was spreading misinformation, so there!
Now that I've gotten that off my chest, (I've been thinking on this for a couple days now- been busy), I feel better. :)
So, therefore, herein, whereby- I'm Proud to say: every one of my photographs has been Photoshopped and or developed with Adobe Lightroom.
Thanks for stopping by, and the next time you hear this line "These haven't been Photoshopped", I hope you can take it with "a grain of salt", either that or just call them a hack! And tell em I sent ya! -Nate from Maine, Usa.
Beguiling Words of Wisdom from Sally Mann-
"Off The Shelf" Acadia National Park, 08/05/12
Hi there- so I was doing some more photography history related research on the Youtube the other day (meaning that I was beat from work and putting my feet up and relaxing with a beer or two) and I came across this fascinating interview with the American photographer Sally Mann (Sally Mann "What Remains"), who is probably best known for her work with her children and family after having been featured in the New York Times Magazine in 1992, at which time the nudes of her children raised all kinds of controversial social issues and preachers were slamming pulpits and people were burning effigies of effigies and really the images were of the highest caliber and are unforgettably poignant and intimate. I remember seeing this documentary long ago maybe on the PBS channel or something but I wanted to rewatch it, and apparently she has become a landscape photographer of the highest order in the times since then using wet plate process and large format film backs and embracing the inherent flaws associated with that and her stuff is incredibly ethereal and amazing, and watching this one was really a transforming experience- which is what I was looking for, so I was psyched! Therefore let me share it with you, friends, fellow picture makers, and comrades:
One part really hit me right in the gut- a quote that I had to replay over and over again until I had it copied down in my notebook- listen to this:
Sally Mann: "There's always a time in any series of work where you get to a certain point and your work is going steadily and each picture is better than the next, and then you sort of level off and that's when you realize that it's not that each picture is better then the next, it's that each picture up's the ante. And that every time you take one good picture, the next one has got to be better".
"As an artist your trajectory just has to keep going up. the thing that subverts your next body of work is the work you've taken before."
"All the good pictures that came so easily now make the next set of pictures virtually impossible in your mind."
At which point, in my notebook I wrote: "do you ever feel like an interloper?" This was last week, and I'm trying to remember what I was thinking, but the gist of it was- some things are easier then others, just about anybody (disabilities with-standing) can do anything they want to do. Just like Dad used to say: "you can be anybody you want to", we can all be an astronaut or the President of the USA or a great musician or a great photographer- you just have to believe in yourself. But obviously sometimes it gets difficult, even after you've learned the thing, as to how to get better and betterer. I remember loving being a jazz musician living in Boston when I was in my twenties, but I always found the performance part of it really pretty difficult, I loved to compose and arrange and write but the performing just never really felt natural. Conversely I feel like I can blow glass almost effortlessly, even in front of an audience- I just don't feel the same kind of stress I felt as a performing musician, but that's not mine: I like to work for them now and stay in the shop as a craftsman. But the photography I want to be all mine. Here I can represent myself from start to finish and every decision from making the picture to the price I sell it for is on me, and I love it. But definitely you have to question yourself, all the time, as to am I doing the right thing here, here, and here. And I do think I'm doing it mostly right, I don't know what I'll be shooting next year or how I'll be developing my pictures- I do know that I'm going to renew my Flickr account so they can't hold my pictures hostage, but I don't really know why, other than that- your guess is as good as mine. I still really want to go to Iceland and shoot though, that's for sure.
So, I hope this wasn't a complete waste of your time and that somehow in someway your trajectory as whatever artist you are has been nurtured in some kind of way from coming here today. Have a good one and stay safe out there -Nate from Maine Usa.
And P.s. You guys and gals got any favorite quotes from photographers you want to share? Leave 'em in the comments- huzzah! -N8