Month: May 2017

Bracketing: Hedging Your Bets [Encore Publication]: In challenging shooting conditions, exposure bracketing is a great insurance policy

In the old film days of photography, it would be days or even weeks after shooting before we could see the results.  I would routinely use a procedure called “bracketing” to make a series of shots, each at a slightly different exposure, to increase the odds that one would come out decently exposed.  Even today, when digital photography allows us to see the results immediately, there are two good reasons to employ the exposure bracketing technique: 1) it can be hard to assess on a small LCD screen in bright daylight and while in the excitement of shooting whether the exposure is really correct, and 2) when the contrast between the brighter and dimmer parts of the scene is high we may want to stitch several different exposures together using software to create a high dynamic range (HDR) image later.

Tricky subjects, like this tiny Svalbard reindeer against a glacier background, benefit greatly from exposure bracketing.  From a series of 5, 7, or even 9 images shot at slightly different exposures, you can choose the one with the correct exposure for the conditions.  Buy this photo

So there are still good reasons to use exposure bracketing, and fortunately, it is quite easy to employ this technique.  Here’s how.

If possible, mount your camera on a tripod when using bracketing so it won’t move between exposures.  Then you can combine several of the exposures into an HDR image later if desired.

If your camera has a bracketing button or menu item, use it to specify how many shots you want to take (I usually shoot 5 or 7 different exposures when bracketing) and how much you want to vary the exposure between each shot and the next (often I choose a 1-stop difference).  If your camera lacks this feature, you can still use bracketing by manually adjusting the exposure between each shot and the next; just use your camera’s exposure compensation control to dial in first -2 stops, then -1 stop, then 0, then +1 stop, and finally +2 stops.

I like to set my camera for continuous shooting while bracketing.  That way, I just hold down the remote shutter release and the camera shoots all 5 or 7 exposures in rapid succession.  But it’s fine to shoot each frame individually in single release mode, if you prefer.

There are some subtleties to think about when employing exposure bracketing.  Some cameras let you choose whether to vary the aperture, the shutter speed, or the ISO setting, while holding the other two settings constant.  In most cases, I prefer to vary the shutter speed and hold the aperture and ISO settings constant, because changing the aperture affects the images’s depth-of-field, and changing the ISO setting can affect the noise in the image.

Later, during post-processing, you review the images and choose the one that is properly exposed.  Or if the scene is very high contrast, you can use photo editing software such as Lightroom or Photoshop to stitch several frames in your series together into an HDR image, which ensures good exposure from the brightest to the darkest tones in your photo.

Several exposures were shot using bracketing and then combined in Photoshop to create this HDR  image.  All tones from the darkest shadows on the mountain walls to the brightest highlights on the icebergs and lake are properly exposed in the final image.  Buy this photo

Have you used exposure bracketing techniques?  What are your best practices?  Do you use this process mostly for selecting the best exposure or for creating HDR images?  Please share your thoughts here.

Are you interested in learning new travel photography techniques?  Follow this link to see all the posts on techniques: http://www.to-travel-hopefully.com/category/techniques/.

The Best Auto Mode You’ve Never Heard Of [Encore Publication]: What is manual mode with auto ISO, and when should you use it?

I’ve written often in “To Travel Hopefully” about the importance of learning to go beyond your camera’s full “Auto Mode,” in order to be able to control the exposure of your images.  Frequently I like to shoot in full “Manual Mode” so as to be able to choose both my shutter speed and my aperture for full creative control.  But in rapidly changing lighting conditions, it is a real challenge to stay in full manual mode, and it’s a big help to allow the camera’s exposure programs to choose the best overall exposure from image to image.  There are a few ways to do this.  In between the full auto mode and full manual control, there are two common semi-automatic exposure program modes that most photographers are aware of, namely Aperture Priority and Shutter Priority modes.  In today’s post I introduce another exposure mode that few photographers are aware of, but that can give the best of both worlds: automatic exposure setting while retaining full manual control over both aperture and shutter speed.  This exposure mode is called “Manual Mode with Auto ISO.”

It’s important to be able to control shutter speed because that’s the mechanism by which we can freeze action or allow it to blur for creative effect.  It’s equally important to retain control over aperture because this is the means by which we can increase depth-of-field to keep everything in focus or decrease depth-of-field to soften the background.  But there’s a third side to the exposure triangle beyond shutter speed and aperture.  This third parameter is our ISO setting.  Several years ago, most camera sensors weren’t very good at handling noise at very high ISO settings, so we took a risk of ending up with very noisy images if we used our camera’s Auto ISO setting.  Not so today.  Many modern sensors are quite adept at capturing nearly noiseless images at ISO settings up to at least 3200 and often to 6400 or even a lot higher.  So the stigma that “serious” photographers have historically attached to using the Auto ISO setting should really be laid to rest.

That happy development allows us to use a mode called “Manual Mode with Auto ISO,” in which we set the camera’s exposure program to “M” or full manual mode but also enable the camera’s Auto ISO setting.  By doing so we can preserve full control over both our shutter speed and our aperture, but also allow the camera to choose the best ISO setting to give a good overall exposure as lighting conditions change.  Making this mode even more appealing, most cameras let us select the highest ISO setting (say, 6400) that we’re willing to allow.  So if the lighting level gets sufficiently dim, the ISO won’t go so high as to introduce a lot of noise into the image; instead, we just select a slower shutter speed and/or a wider aperture.

A good example of when it makes sense to use Manual Mode with Auto ISO is when shooting a street fair or an outdoor sporting event.  In these situations the lighting can change quickly depending on the cloud cover, what direction we’re shooting, and the subject and type of image we’re making.  The following three images were all shot at this year’s Carnaval San Francisco, a big street festival and parade.  It was a sunny day, but much of the parade route was in open shade, and depending on the subject there were times when I wanted to use some fill flash.  To freeze the motion, I needed a fast shutter speed, and to isolate my main subject I usually wanted a wide aperture.  Using Manual Mode, I could choose both of these settings.  But because the light conditions were ever-changing, coupling the use of Auto ISO with Manual Mode allowed the camera to adapt the exposure to the light levels for each image.

Full direct sunlight on the main subject made for very bright lighting.  Buy this photo

Open shade with a touch of fill flash required slightly different settings.  Buy this photo

A close-up portrait made in cross-lighting needed yet another exposure level.  Buy this photo

The next time you’re shooting in a shifting lighting environment yet also want to preserve full control over both shutter speed and aperture, try Manual Mode with Auto ISO.  It’s not covered in most cameras’ instruction manuals, but it can be a big problem-solver in many situations.

Do you use Manual Mode with Auto ISO to control exposure?  Do you have other tips for how to adapt to changing lighting conditions without handing over the creative control to your camera?  Please share your experiences here.

Want to read other posts about photographic techniques?  Find them all here: Posts on Techniques.

 

Will Photography Soon Be Obsolete? [Encore Publicaton]: Musings on AI as artist

A friend recently pondered via a social media post whether we will have photography as we know it in the future, or if artificial intelligence (AI) will soon generate all of our images.  With tens of millions of people now capturing snapshots on their phones’ cameras and instantly applying AI-generated filters to enhance or modify the images, we can certainly observe an increasing trend toward computer involvement in the making of photos.  But I don’t believe AI will replace the artist’s eye in the making of fine-art photographs for quite some time to come.  Here are a few semi-random musings on this theme.

A machine can certainly generate bad art.  In college in the mid-1980s, I wrote a program for my Computer Science final exam that composed musical canons (pieces in which each voice plays the same melody together, but starting at different times).  My code used a semi-random configuration of musical intervals as the opening melody, then applied a simplified set of the rules of counterpoint (how musical lines are allowed to fit together) to complete the canon.  I received an “A” for this project, but truth to tell, any listener familiar with classical music could instantly discern that the pieces composed by my program weren’t anything like the lovely canons written by Telemann, for example.  In other words, my AI didn’t pass the Turing Test.

In the more than 30 years since I wrote that program, AI has progressed by leaps and bounds.  Computers can now generate poetry, classical and jazz music, and even paintings that many non-experts judge as products of human artistic creativity.  I’m fascinated by the progress, but so far the best of the AI-generated “art” is really just imitation and trickery: it takes a seed of something original such as a photograph or a melody, and transforms it using a set of complex rules that could be described as a pre-programmed artistic style into something pleasant enough but not inspiring.

In his landmark 1979 book, “Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid,” Douglas Hofstadter amazed the world by demonstrating comparable interlocking themes of grace and elegance among the very different disciplines of mathematics, visual art, and music.  He even speculated on the ability of machines to create works of great insight.  But Hofstadter’s proposed approach differed from that of the AI field that has developed since then in that he favored teaching machines to create via an understanding of how the human mind creates, as opposed to today’s AI approach of taking mountains of data and throwing brute force calculations at it.  To my eye, ear, and mind, this brute force method is the reason most of today’s attempts to artificially emulate the creative process are not insightful and do not add anything to their genres.  And so far, the vast majority of these attempts fail their respective Turing Tests.  That is, humans can tell it is a machine and not a human generating the “art.”

Applying these musings to the art of photography, what do see today?  To be sure, more images are being generated today than ever before in human history, and the art of photography is being devalued by its sheer pervasiveness.  Everyone captures images now, and most of them believe that makes them photographers.  While photographers have always required the involvement of a machine in the creation of their art, good photographers have always relied on their artistic vision, the so-called artist’s eye, to create images that are special.  I don’t believe that all the Meitu and similar AI filters that abound today are creating any photographic art that adds insight or helps interpret the world around us.

One very central component in photography is composition.  How does the photographer choose what elements to include in the image, and how will these elements be combined?  Read my recent post on composition here: Post on Composition.  This vital aspect of photography does use some “rules”, such as the Rule of Thirds, Leading Lines, Framing Elements, Point of View, Foreground/Background, and Symmetry and Patterns.  Rules, of course, can be programmed into an AI so that the machine can emulate the way humans create.  But in photographic composition, the “rules” are really just guidelines for getting started.  A good photographer knows when to break the rules for artistic impact.

Even the dumbest devices are capable of generating images.  Security cameras can capture images that we would consider to be rudimentary documentary photographs.  Given long enough, a security camera might accidentally capture what we would consider to be a good street photography image, because after capturing millions of dull scenes, sooner or later the camera will catch a random alignment of interesting elements.  It’s like thousands of monkeys typing random characters: given enough time, one of them will coincidentally type out a Shakespeare sonnet or even a full play.  As wearable computing devices become more pervasive, many people’s lives will be documented in real-time via the capture of millions of images.  Some of these may be interesting to their friends and perhaps the general public.  A few may even have artistic value.  But true artistry isn’t characterized by coincidence.

I don’t doubt that eventually we will get to the point where machines can create images as good as much of what humans can create.  I think we’ll get there, but it will take a long, long time.  And in the meantime, the role of photographer as artist, experimenter, and interpreter of the world around us will continue to be central to our society’s need for communication and expression.

What do you think about the future of photography?  Will we soon see machines creating much of our imagery?  How about our good, artistic imagery?  Please share your thoughts here.

Focus on Dance Brigade’s “Gracias a la Vida: Love in a Bitter Time” [Encore Publication]: Creative approaches to shooting inspiring performances

Recently, I had the privilege of shooting the dress rehearsal for a new show highlighting 40 years of activism through the arts, presented by San Francisco feminist and multi-cultural dance company, Dance Brigade.  Their work was extremely powerful and moving.  Not only was it artistically and technically astonishing, but the show was truly inspiring as a testament to the power of artists fighting for social justice.  In the current era we need this power to be wielded widely and wisely to balance the widespread injustice all around us.

When shooting work as inspiring as this, I often choose less traditional and more creative approaches to presenting my images.  In short, the medium should match the message, so when the message is as powerful as Dance Brigade’s performance, I believe the medium should rise to the occasion.  So, in addition to making some traditional documentary images shot looking directly toward the performers with an eye toward capturing the obvious, I also strove to capture some different and unusual perspectives on the performance.  I present some of them in the post with short descriptions of my intent for each image.

The usual rules for shooting a live indoor performance still apply.  Gain permission to shoot in advance directly from the show’s producer.  Use a fast lens and high ISO setting so as to be able to preserve a fast shutter speed to freeze action while still avoiding use of flash, which distracts performers and crew.  Turn off your LCD display and check your images only when there’s a break in the action.  Use the quietest shutter mode your camera supports.  And never use a tripod or monopod unless you have explicit permission from the producer.

Wait for the telling moment: There are instants during live performances that distill the overall message down to its essence.  Seek those moments.  Buy this photo

Tell a story: Just as a good performance is designed to reveal key messages to the audience at the appropriate time, so should the photographer capture images that disclose the underlying narrative.  This image of the climax from a piece on the plight of refugees captures the essence of the story.  Buy this photo

Find an unusual perspective: When shooting behind-the-scenes such as at a dress rehearsal, you have the opportunity to find just the right combination of vantage point and lens to make your images really pop.  This image was made from the lip of the stage.  I had to lean forward across the front of the stage and shoot upward.  I love this shot because it captures the artist from her eye level just at a decisive moment in the drama.  Buy this photo

Document the power of the performance: This piece started quietly and worked up slowly to a frenzy of pent-up anger and activism.  I found the best vantage point and waited for the perfect moment.  Buy this photo

Know when to break the basic rules of composition: Sure, most of the time you want to avoid cutting a performer’s head off.  But I saw the latent energy inherent in the unorthodox framing of this image.  By shooting from the static artist’s level and capturing only part of the jumping artist’s body, I transformed the image into a bolder statement that supported the message of the piece.  Buy this photo

Gain perspective: Not every image needs to include the whole environment.  Sometimes it’s more powerful to capture just the salient part.  Buy this photo

Capture a moment of pure joy: Shoot lots of images so that you can choose the ones that really make an impact.  The bold colors, shallow depth-of-field, and simple composition of this image work to emphasize the dancer’s aura of joyful triumph.  Buy this photo

Use black-and-white: This image cried out for me to convert it to monochrome.  Its raw documentary power and gritty, graphic nature are more compelling in black-and-white.  Buy this photo

Don’t be afraid to use selective focus: It’s okay for certain elements of your subject not to be in sharp focus.  I chose a narrow depth-of-field in order to obtain selective focus on just the performers in the middle of this triumphant circle.  The soft focus on the dancers in the foreground and far background only serve to enhance the dramatic power of the image.  Buy this photo

I hope this essay provides some ideas for how to shoot creative images that amplify the power of your message.  Modern digital photography provides us with so many tools for making images that go beyond the pure documentary function to also enchant our viewers with imagination.  A performance as moving as Dance Brigade’s “Gracias a la Vida: Love in a Bitter Time” deserves more than a straightforward narrative capture.  I tried to make some images that supported their messaging with a creative visual style.  Continue to capture the obvious message in your images, but keep shooting to go beyond the documentary.  Go wild, and see what you can achieve!

How do you go beyond the obvious to capture images that pop?  Please share your ideas here?

Want to read more posts about what to shoot while traveling or near home?  Find them all here: Posts on What to Shoot.

 

Focus on Northern India: A diverse tapestry of colors, cultures, and chaos, India will stay with you forever

My wife and I are just back from an amazing 2.5-week adventure traveling through northern India.  Operated by Overseas Adventure Travel, the trip’s diverse itinerary took us from the chaotic capital of New Delhi to the “pink city” of Jaipur, brought us face to face with wild tigers in Ranthambore National Park, continued to Agra to view the landmark Taj Mahal and Agra Fort, then on to the ornately carved 9th century Chandela temples of Khajuraho, and finally to the ancient holy city of Varanasi.  While it was exciting to view the iconic attractions of India, what made this adventure truly unforgettable for us was its many opportunities to interact with Indian people from all walks of life: pilgrims arrived in Varanasi to pray and bathe in the sacred waters of the Ganges River, street kids in Delhi who started their own newspaper to expose the exploitation and abuses of children in their community, a matriarch and her family as they keep house in a tiny remote rural village, students at a village school, and women in Agra who survived horrific acid attacks and are advocating for awareness and justice.  India is a diverse tapestry of colors, cultures, and chaos that will inspire you and stay with you forever.  And for a travel photographer, visiting the north of India is a dream come true.

In today’s post we will take a look at some of my favorite images from this adventure.  I’ll include some brief discussion about who or what is included in each image and, where appropriate, a few words about how each image was made.

Our adventure began in the capital and largest city, Delhi.  The old part of the city is truly ancient, with a heritage dating back more than 1000 years.  But Delhi’s heritage also includes the British colonial period in the 19th and 20th centuries, and New Delhi today is the capital of the Indian republic and home to 22 million people.

People waiting for the next meal service at the Gurdwara Bangla Sahib Sikh temple in New Delhi.  The staff and volunteers there serve more than 8000 free meals per day to the needy people of New Delhi.  To make this image, I used a telephoto lens and shot from a low angle so as to compress the scene and capture the epic scale of the crowd.  In post-processing, I cropped the image to better lead the viewer’s eye around the scene, and I tweaked the contrast and vibrancy to better represent my original emotions on being in the middle of this scene.  Buy this photo

Our first gift purchase was a set of necklaces from this girl who sold them roadside in New Delhi.  To make this portrait, I used an 85mm portrait lens at a wide aperture (small F-stop number) to blur the background, and I added just a touch of fill-in flash using a handhelf off-camera strobe connected with an extension cable.  Buy this photo

We met this lovely girl at the Jama Masjid, India’s largest mosque, and she graciously agreed to pose for a portrait.  Many travelers will try to “take” photos of people they see on their trips by simply pointing the camera at them or using a long lens to hide their intentions.  To “make” (not “take”) really compelling portraits, it’s essential to have a personal connection with your subject.  Even though we didn’t share a common language, we engaged the young woman in “conversation” using a combination of smiles and hand gestures, and once we were comfortable together, I used the universal gesture to ask if she would pose for my camera.  Buy this photo

For an authentic Indian experience, we took a thrilling and bone-rattling 30-minute ride through the crowded lanes of Old Delhi in a bicycle rickshaw.  In this image I tried to capture the sense of chaos and crowding as we experienced it from the rickshaw.  I shot from the perspective of the passenger and framed the image using the top of the vehicle.  I used a small aperture (high F-stop number) to ensure the whole vista would be in focus, and I set the exposure based on the motorcyclist in front of us.  Buy this photo

Qutab Minar is the symbol of New Delhi and was built in the 12th century.  The minaret is 234 feet high and a crowning achievement of Indo-Islamic architecture.  To fit in the entire tower, a wide-angle lens was required, but I was careful to frame the image so as to avoid distorting the structure too severely.  I timed this shot to capture the jetliner as it overflew the site.  Buy this photo

We made an inspiring visit to the Balaknama newspaper, run by New Delhi’s street kids as a platform for getting their voices heard and for championing fair treatment of these historically underserved and abused children.  This 17-year-old girl is the primary organizer of 10,000 of New Delhi’s street kids.  The portrait was made using only available light (no flash), as I didn’t want to disrupt our conversation with the kids.  Because the light was so dim inside the building, I had to use a very fast portrait lens and a high ISO sensitivity setting.  Buy this photo

After leaving behind the bustle of New Delhi, we traveled overland to Jaipur.  Known as the “Pink City” for the peculiar rosy color its downtown buildings were painted in preparation for a royal visit, Jaipur is home to several of India’s most impressive historical sites.

We arose very early in the morning to embark on a hot-air balloon ride over the rural villages and farms surrounding Jaipur.  I shot this image of a brick-making factory from the gondola of our hot-air balloon using a telephoto lens to compress the perspective.  I converted the image to black-and-white during post-processing in order to emphasize the patterns and textures of the stacks of bricks surrounding the camel-drawn cart.  Buy this photo

Our balloon landed in a field outside a tiny village in rural Rajasthan.  All of the villagers came out to our landing site to say hello.  Here we are posing in front of the hot-air balloon, together with our new friends in the village.  I did not have time to set up my tripod for this shot, so I enlisted a fellow traveler to release the shutter for me.  When using this method to capture yourself in a photo, be sure to preset all of your camera’s controls and show your volunteer exactly how you want the image composed.  Buy this photo

This wonderful elder lady of the village danced for us and generally entertained the whole village.  Equally entertaining to the villagers were the dances we attempted to perform for them.  Buy this photo

Jaipur’s landmark Palace of the Winds provided nearly 1000 windows through which the women of the court could look down on the streets below.  Careful attention should be paid to composing architectural images so as to capture the building in a striking way.  Here I used a wide-angle lens and composed slightly off-center so as to portray some depth to the image.  Buy this photo

During our home-hosted dinner in Jaipur, we enjoyed a lovely meal cooked by our hostess Ruchi.  Most images of food are made by shooting straight down on the plate from above, but here I wanted to convey the conviviality of the meal by shooting from the perspective of a diner at the table.  Buy this photo

Outside of Jaipur we were privileged to come across and participate in a pre-wedding dance celebration in honor of the couple who were to be married the following day.  This portrait was composed from a low angle right in front of the dancer to truly put the viewer into the middle of the action.  A fast shutter speed was used to freeze the motion, and I chose a small aperture (high F-stop number) to keep the whole scene in focus.  Buy this photo

After Jaipur, we set out overland across the heart of Rajasthan, heading for Ranthambore National Park.  This wildlife preserve is home to many species, including spotted deer, the large sambar deer, langur monkeys, crocodiles, and more than 450 species of birds.  But it is best known for its population of wild tigers, one of the highest concentrations of tigers in the world.

Although Ranthamore National Park is one of the best places in the world to attempt to observe tigers, even there it is unusual to see them.  We were very fortunate during our early morning game drive to encounter two tigers.  The first, this female, was not particularly close by was stalking prey in an open and forested terrain.  The second, a large male, was near our vehicle but was obscured in dense jungle.  The key to successful wildlife photography is to shoot lots of images.  I shot more than 200 frames of this tiger in order to ensure a few would be of excellent quality.  I used the bulky and heavy 500mm lens that I had carried all the way from San Francisco in the hopes that we’d encounter a tiger.  The images were shot with a fast shutter speed to freeze the animal’s motion and to reduce camera shake, and I used a relatively wide aperture (low F-stop number) to throw the background out of focus.  Careful attention should be paid to composing wildlife portraits without too much clutter in the background.  Buy this photo

We visited a school in a rural Ranthambore village.  It was a delight to meet the students there.  Here my wife Mary chats with two sixth-grade girls who hope to become engineers when they grow up.  They were very happy to meet Mary, a female engineer herself, and to learn about careers in the field.  When photographing children, many people shoot from their own eye level, which results in portraits that appear condescending to the subject.  It’s better to get down to the child’s eye level or even below so as to show the world from the subject’s point of view.  Buy this photo

After our school visit, we strolled through the village to get a sense of the daily life of the people living there.  A highlight was a visit to this matriarch’s home.  Many of the local kids came by our hostess’ house to say hello to us.  The eyeliner on the kids’ faces is intended to make their eyes look bigger.  Once again, I got down low to capture the scene from the perspective of the kids.  Buy this photo

A women’s cooperative trains village women to make handicrafts, providing them with income and empowering them to invest in the community and their own futures.  We enjoyed lunch with several of the artisans, and after getting to know the woman who sat at our table, I made this compelling portrait.  I got up-close and used a classic 85mm portrait lens with a very wide aperture (small F-stop number) to soften the background.  In post-processing I brought out the colors in her sari and scarf, and I added a bit of vignetting to darken the edges of the image and emphasize the subject.  Buy this photo

En route to Agra, we visited the remarkable Abhaneri step-well, an ingenious solution to bring up water from a very low water table.  In this image I wanted to emphasize the step-well’s abstract, Escher-esque appearance, so I composed it using a telephoto lens to frame the seemingly endless symmetry of the ladders.  In post-processing I converted the image to black-and-white to bring out the patterns and abstraction.  Buy this photo

To break up the very long drive from Ranthambore to Agra, OAT provides an overnight stay at a tented camp.  Here our entire group (except for your intrepid photographer-author) gathers around the campfire for drinks, snacks, and folk-dancing.  Buy this photo

Agra is home to India’s most visited and loved site, the Taj Mahal.  Of course, the Taj is a must-see, but our visit to Agra also included worthwhile visits to the Agra Fort and a farmer’s market, as well as a very moving and inspiring encounter with women survivors of acid attacks.

Early in the morning we visited a farmer’s market in Agra.  I used a medium telephoto lens to capture this fruit seller as he enjoyed a smoking break (right on top of his wares).  Buy this photo

Sheroes’ Cafe in Agra is a project founded by and for the women of India who are survivors of acid attacks.  We were so inspired by meeting Rupa and learning about her story and her road to physical and emotional recovery after her brutal attack at the age of 15 by her stepmother.  Through this project, Rupa has gained the confidence and independence to leave home, meet other survivors and activists, build a business as a clothing designer, and access the surgical care required to reconstruct her face.  The courage and resilience shown by the women we met at the cafe moved us to want to help their cause to educate people and improve the treatment of India’s women.  Buy this photo

When shooting an iconic site such as the Taj Mahal, I try to avoid capturing the “postcard shots,” opting instead to capture the well-known site from a less-known vantage point.  The Moonlight Garden provides a less crowded and even more lovely alternative view of the Taj Mahal at sunset.  As I’ve said before and will surely say again, don’t forget to include yourself in some of your images.  Buy this photo

To get from Agra to Khajuraho, the seat of the 9th and 10th century Chandela Dynasty, it is necessary to take first a train and then a long drive.  It’s worth the effort!  The ancient temple complexes at Khajuraho are adorned with ornate carvings depicting all aspects of life.  Many of the carvings are erotic in nature, which shocked the Victorian British who excavated the site in the 19th century.

The Chandela Dynasty ruled Central India for several hundred years beginning over 1000 years ago.  The temple complexes at Khajuraho are well preserved and are fascinating for their intricate stone carvings, many of them erotic.  Here I included a rhododendron tree in the foreground to provide some contrasting color and texture against the stone of the temple.  Buy this photo

Our final destination in India before returning home by way of Delhi was the ancient sacred city of Varanasi.  This was a highlight of the trip.  Families of the deceased join pilgrims and holy men along the banks of the Ganges River using its sacred waters to cremate the dead, bathe, and pray.  Boat rides along the Ganges in the morning and again in the evening afforded us the chance to observe the many rituals conducted here by India’s Hindus each day.

A sadhu (holy man) on the banks of the Ganges River.  Because the sadhus are dependent on alms to survive, it is important to offer a small amount of money in order to make a portrait.  Buy this photo

Bathing in the sacred Ganges River.  This favorite portrait was made after meeting the two women, getting their permission, and shooting from behind as they prepared to bathe and pray in the river.  To impart the dreamlike mood of the scene into the image, I framed it with the brightly colored women at the front surrounded by the mystical dark color of the water.  I used a wide aperture (high F-stop number) to blur the water, and in post-processing I created a slight vignette to darken the corners of the image.  Buy this photo

We took a second boat ride, this time in the evening, to witness aarti, the sacred light ceremony in which priests thank the river Ganges for providing purification.  This colorful ritual provided a fitting ending to our memorable 2.5-week visit through the north of India.  Buy this photo

Have you visited India?  Please share your fondest (and least fond) memories here, along with your thoughts about how to capture India’s vibrant diverse scenes in images.

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Focus on Tanzania [Encore Publication]: Every wildlife photographer’s dream destination

There are very few destinations more exciting to us travel photographers than East Africa.  My family’s 2.5-week trip to Tanzania, with a brief stroll into Kenya, was a dream come true.  Operated by Overseas Adventure Travel, the adventure began with a pre-trip excursion to the Kilimanjaro region, then moved on to the regional capital city of Arusha and to safaris in Tarangire National Park, Olduvai Gorge, Serengeti National Park, and Ngorongoro Crater.  It goes without saying that the wildlife photography in Tanzania is second-to-none, but we found the authentic cultural interactions with the nomadic Maasai and other local people to be a highlight of the trip.

The usually shy Mount Kilimanjaro made a brief appearance as we awaited sunset near our lodge.  The glaciers that adorn this iconic landform are melting quickly as a result of climate change, so this is a place to visit soon.  I used a polarizing filter on a medium telephoto lens to reduce the haze and bring out the texture of the mountain, and I framed the shot through some branches near our campfire.

Mount Kilimanjaro lit by alpenglow.  Buy this photo

On a game drive in the Kilimanjaro region, we encountered this lovely lilac-breasted roller.  To capture this image, I used a long telephoto lens (500mm, which was equivalent to 750mm when fitted on this camera) and stabilized it on a beanbag that I rested on the top of the safari vehicle.  This is a very important accessory to bring with you on a safari, as you cannot fit a tripod in a safari vehicle and a monopod is awkward.  While the beanbag that I use is no longer available, this one is well reviewed by photographers and represents a good value.


Lilac breasted roller captured with a 500mm lens in the Kilimanjaro region.  Buy this photo

The cultural learning and interaction was a big part of this trip.  Here my older daughter is greeted by a young Maasai woman as we arrived at their settlement.  The Maasai are nomadic herders, usually moving from place to place to pasture their cattle throughout the seasons of the year.  It was a fascinating opportunity to meet them and learn about their way of life, and to make portraits with the Maasai people we met.

A warm welcome as we arrived at the first of two Maasai villages visited during our trip.  Buy this photo

I had a fun interaction with this young Maasai boy by showing him the images as I shot his portrait in various places around the village.  He had not seen many photos of himself.  Here he is posing in front of his family’s house.

A Maasai boy by his family’s shelter.  Buy this photo

Our visit to the bustling city of Arusha was intended to be a staging point for the game viewing excursions to follow, but we found Arusha to be a very interesting cultural crossroads.  Here is a shot of what passes for a towing service in the area, a broken-down van being pulled to a service station on top of a donkey cart.  Always be on the lookout for serendipitous moments like this one when you travel!

A street scene in Arusha, the region’s largest city.  Buy this photo

Along the road from Arusha to Tarangire National Park, we stopped to chat with a group of several young Maasai men.  They had recently undergone the ritual circumcision ceremony that marked an important milestone on their journey to become warriors.  For the next six months they would wear the special face paint while they underwent their final training.  Our local guide was very helpful in facilitating our conversation.  Through him, I asked this man’s permission to make a portrait.  This was shot with a moderate telephoto lens and a wide aperture to soften the background.

A young man nears the end of his journey to becoming a Maasai warrior.  Buy this photo

Tarangire National Park is a gem of a nature preserve that is often overlooked by visitors to Tanzania.  Be sure to visit Tarangire if at all possible!  Here’s a shot of a baby baboon in a group of baboons we were observing there.  When shooting backlit wildlife, use your camera’s spot metering mode with the focus point on the animal, so your camera won’t underexpose the main subject.

A playful baby baboon in Tarangire National Park.  Buy this photo

We stopped for a visit to a second Maasai settlement, very different from our first Maasai encounter.  This second group of Maasai were only semi-nomadic and lived much of the year in a more permanent settlement.  While their way of life was a bit less precarious, and included public education and solid housing, they still lacked a source of safe drinking water, a common problem in East Africa.  We presented the chief with a water filter we had purchased in Arusha, for use by the whole village.  This group portrait was made of the villagers when they accepted our gift of the water filter.

Maasai villagers with their new water filter.  Buy this photo

Serengeti National Park is the stuff we travel photographers’ dreams are made of!  Along with game walks and game drives in open safari vehicles, we also had the chance to soar silently above the Endless Plains in a hot air balloon.  This is an amazing way to view the migrations of the herds and the predators and scavengers that tag along.  This image was made by shooting down from the basket of our balloon toward a balloon closer to the ground.  You can see the trees and herds of wildebeest on the plains below.

Safari by hot air balloon.  Buy this photo

Of the hundreds of animal species we encountered, including so much more than just the Big Five, the leopard was one of the most elusive.  Here we spotted (as it were) a leopard napping in a tree in Seregenti National Park.  This shot was made with a long telephoto lens resting on a beanbag in our safari vehicle.  My go-to lens for wildlife photography is the Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 lens.  It’s more economical than a Nikon or Canon super-tele, and it produces reasonably sharp images even when used at its widest aperture.  You can spend much more on this type of big glass if you want or need to, but I’ve found this lens works quite well for me.

A sleepy leopard yawns in a tree above the Endless Plains of Serengeti National Park.  Buy this photo

The migration of the herds is an annual event across the combined national parks of Serengeti in Tanzania and Maasai Mara in Kenya.  It’s a spectacular sight as millions of wildebeest, zebra, and gazelles slowly migrate across plains and rivers, occasionally being eaten by the predators who follow them.  To give a sense of the scale and the action, in this image I zoomed in on a group of wildebeest with a telephoto lens so as to compress the scene.

A small vignette from the massive migration of the herds across the East African plain.  Buy this photo

We were very fortunate to come across this quiet scene of a lioness with her newborn cubs.  We watched from a distance so as not to disturb this family as she cleaned and played with her two cubs, them mewing like housecats all the while.  The light was low in this glen, and the long telephoto lens was slow, so I stabilized it on a beanbag and shot at a higher ISO setting to allow for a reasonably fast shutter speed.  There was some noise in the image as a result of the high ISO (camera sensors weren’t as good at high sensitivities back in 2012), but I did my best to reduce the noise during post-processing.

A mother lion spends some quality time with her cubs.  Buy this photo

We visited a primary school in a small community.  This was one of the first schools in Tanzania to serve breakfast and lunch to students who walk miles each way to school and would have to double their daily walking distance if they had to return home midday for lunch.  My daughter enjoyed talking with students about their daily lessons.

Visiting a classroom at a rural primary school.  Buy this photo

Farewell to Tanzania!  My family enjoys a glorious African sunrise at our tented camp located right inside the national park.

A Serengeti sunrise.  Buy this photo

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Have you visited East Africa?  What were the highlights of your trip?  Please share your comments here.