Month: June 2017

Photographic Blasphemy [Encore Publication]: Why you don’t need a tripod for most travel photography

Warning: The following assertion will sound heretical to many photography enthusiasts.  Stop reading now if you can’t handle the truth :-).

I’m going to say it.  You don’t need to carry a tripod for most travel photography situations.  There, I’ve said it.

This is blasphemy to many photographers.  After all, for the past 15 years or so, the badge of a “serious” photographer has been this three-legged object we stick between our camera and the ground.  Most scenic overlooks and other landscape photography-friendly locations have been positively flooded by a veritable sea of tripods in recent years.  I’ve seen viewpoints so clogged by tripods that photographers and even (heaven forbid) non-photographers are forced to elbow their way through just to get a place to stand to watch the sunrise, sunset, or other pretty happening.  For years, I have carried at least a lightweight tripod, and occasionally a heavy-duty professional tripod, with me to nearly every shoot, which for me is usually about two per day.  It’s become an ingrained behavior, a knee-jerk reaction, for most photographers.  But why, exactly?

During my recent travels in India, I made many wonderful images in all genres of photography.  I used a lot of gear to do so.  One item I didn’t use: a tripod.  Buy this photo

There are times when a tripod is necessary.  In very low-light situations, such as true nighttime scenes, most astrophotography, and some indoor shoots, it is essential to mount the camera on a sturdy tripod.  When a very long shutter speed is required for a specific effect, such as blurring water in a waterfall or shooting a dancer using rear-curtain sync flash, then you really do need a tripod.  We can even include shoots where several images will be combined using software to make a high dynamic range (HDR) or panoramic image in the category where a tripod is helpful (though, I would argue, not really essential anymore, given how good software has become at stitching overlapping images together).

But so many other times, a tripod is not only not an asset but actually becomes a liability.  Travel photographers must be very mindful of the size and weight of the gear we carry on our adventures.  Every item we bring has to be considered in terms of its value: will the space it takes up in our limited carry-on baggage allotment and its weight on our back every step of our trip be worthwhile in terms of its usefulness in making the best possible images?  A tripod, even a lightweight travel tripod, is a relatively large and heavy piece of gear.  There are other items we need to leave at home in order to make room for a tripod.

I recently returned from a 2.5-week journey through the north of India.  I brought as much gear as I could reasonably fit in carry-on for the international and internal Indian flights.  It weighed a lot, and I had to lug much of the gear I brought on the trip each day on my back through 115-degree heat, sometimes up steep hills to the top of ancient forts.  At the end of the trip, I contemplated my usage of each item I carried.  Both DSLR camera bodies, every lens (even the massive 500mm super-telephoto which I required to make great images of far-off tigers), the speedlights, both battery chargers, and all remote releases, cables, filters, cleaning supplies, etc. were used at some point during the trip.  The one item I never once needed: you guessed it, the tripod!

True, India is a very densely populated country where most sites do not allow tripods or, if they are allowed, the crowds are too thick to deploy them.  And there was ample bright sunlight at most of our locations to handhold the camera.

But I would argue that a tripod is simply not needed for many travel photography situations in general.  These days, a camera’s sensor is so fast and noise-free, and the camera’s resolution so high, that camera shake for most landscape photography settings is a much smaller risk than motion of the subject itself.  My Nikon D810 has a resolution of nearly 37 MB, so if a single tree branch or sometimes even a single leaf moves, I can see it in the image.  A tripod is no more going to stop a leaf from moving than could the ancient viking king Canute stop the tide from coming in (a story frequently misused in modern times, by the way).

From now on, when I pack for a day’s shoot or a month-long journey, I’m going to seriously consider whether I’ll need a tripod and will pack one (or two) only when I can reasonably expect to need it.

What about you?  Do you always carry a tripod, or do you consider its appropriateness before you travel?  If you always carry it, do you always need it?  Would you bring some other piece of gear along if you didn’t have to make space for the tripod?  Please share your thoughts on this controversial topic here!

Want to read more posts about photographic gear?  Find them all here: Posts on Gear.

Join Me on a Photography Tour of India: Capture unique images of cultural celebrations, wild tigers, glorious monuments, and people from all walks of life

Dear Readers,

From Jan. 24 through Feb. 8, 2018, join our small group of photography enthusiasts and experience India with all your senses. India is a dream destination for travel photographers: a vivid tapestry of colors, cultures, and chaos. We’ve planned this unique itinerary to provide ample opportunities to capture unforgettable images that you won’t find in travel brochures and on postcards. Included are visits to two of the most colorful and exciting of India’s exotic annual cultural celebrations, the Republic Day Parade and the Desert Festival (similar to the Pushkar Camel Festival but with far fewer tourists and photographers). We also search for wildlife in a national park hosting among the world’s highest density of wild tigers, visit India’s iconic forts and monuments, and seek authentic interactions with a diverse range of local people.

Our extraordinary photographic journey will take us through Delhi’s colorful bazaars and to its annual Republic Day Parade, to the incomparable Taj Mahal in Agra, on to the annual Desert Festival with its rich tableau of dancing and cultural activities, and then on safari to seek the royal Bengal tigers of Bandhavgarh National Park, among other memorable destinations. Throughout this journey, we will be interacting with fascinating local people from all walks of life, whom we will get the opportunity to meet and to photograph.

Award-winning professional travel photographer Kyle Adler will be shooting alongside tour participants and will provide personalized in-the-field instruction. During our optional informal workshops, we’ll review our recent images, plan our shot list for upcoming locations, and cover techniques to make the best images possible. Topics will be tailored to the group’s interests and may cover any aspects of travel photography from shot planning to capture technique, and on to post-processing and image sharing. Unlike most photography tours, we will place a special emphasis on learning to use the camera as a bridge to enhanced understanding of the land and people we visit. Photographers of any level will see their images improve, and non-photographer friends and family are also most welcome to join this tour. You can make memorable images using whatever camera gear you wish to bring; it is not necessary to invest in specialized gear.

See the detailed itinerary, hotel list, pricing, and other information here: KYLE ADLER- COLORS OF INDIA PHOTOGRAPHY TOUR

Please let me know if you have questions or are interested in learning more about the trip. Mary and I hope that you can join us for this rare opportunity to experience the people, cultures, landscapes, and wildlife of India on a one-of-a-kind adventure tailored to photographers like you!

 

 

Architecture in Ireland and Scotland [Encore Publication]: From Neolithic to today, Ireland has remarkable buildings; here’s how to capture them

During our recent travels in Dublin, hiking across southwestern Ireland, and visiting Edinburgh, we encountered fascinating architecture at every turn.  From ruined farmhouses to stately manor houses, and from Neolithic-era “beehive huts” made of stone to modern fishing shacks, there is a wealth of diversity in the buildings in this region.  Here I present some images of the architecture we saw during our rambles, along with a few words about each.

Dublin’s Trinity College is one of the oldest universities in the world.  Famous as the home of the ancient Book of Kells, the college also boasts the Long Room, quite possibly the grandest study hall in the world.  This image was made with a wide-angle lens using only available light.  I used a relatively high ISO setting so that I could choose a small aperture for greater depth-of-field while still using a fast enough shutter speed to handhold the camera.  Buy this photo

Another perspective on the Long Room, this image captures only the upper gallery, emphasizing the repeating patterns of the ladders, arches, and shelves.  During post-processing I decided to render the photo in black-and-white to bring out the texture and pattern.  Buy this photo

An architectural photo doesn’t have to isolate the building from its surroundings.  I combined a shot of Dublin’s famous Olympia Theatre with a street scene by framing the theater and waiting for an interesting cast of characters to walk by.  Buy this photo

Dublin Castle was built during the Anglo-Norman period and has witnessed nearly the entire history of the city.  It is an austere but not particularly pretty building.  To capture this image I shot with a wide-angle lens and a polarizing filter to bring out the texture of the stonework and to attempt to enhance a rather undramatic grey sky.  Buy this photo

The interior of Dublin Castle is prettier than its exterior.  This shot was handheld, as tripods are not allowed inside.  I used a fast normal lens, but even with a high ISO setting the light was sufficiently low that I had to use a large aperture, resulting in a shallow depth-of-field.  Although the foreground objects are not in sharp focus, I think this scene works rather well to capture a sense of the place.  Buy this photo

In the remote and beautiful Gougane Barra Forest Park lie the ruins of a Sixth Century abbey founded by St. Finbarr.  To make this image, I shot from inside one of the cells where the monks lived, looking outward toward the ruins of the abbey walls and altar.  From this perspective the viewer gets a sense of what it would have been like to live a mostly solitary and austere life here many centuries ago.  Buy this photo

On the same tiny island where the ruined abbey is located on Gougane Barra, there is a more modern but quite lovely church.  We spent some time getting to know the American bride and groom who were celebrating their wedding here, and I shot them in front of the little chapel looking across the lake from the mainland.  Including people in the context of the building makes architectural photography more relatable and compelling.  Buy this photo

Hiking along the remote Sheep’s Head Way, we came across this old farmhouse.  I framed the image with an extreme wide-angle lens to lend it an interesting perspective, and I used a circular polarizing filter to saturate the colors of the building and to enhance the sky and lawn.  Buy this photo

The stately Bantry House lies at the end of the Sheep’s Head Way and has been owned by the same family since 1750.  This photo was made from the top of the hundred steps leading through the gardens and up a hill behind the house.  It’s a lovely vantage point from which to photograph the mansion, its gardens, and the gorgeous harbor and mountains in the background.  A polarizing filter was used to add drama to the sky and to saturate the colors of the water and gardens.  Buy this photo

This old farmhouse is now an interpretive center and shop open to the public to give a sense of what rural Irish life was like a century ago.  The front of the house is especially charming when framed to include the rustic surroundings.  Buy this photo

We started our walk in Killarney National Park at the lovely Derrycunnihy Church.  I framed this scene from a low angle looking slightly upward at the church and using a wide-angle lens.  The perspective gives a sense of the stark isolation of the church in this very remote wilderness setting.  As always when shooting upward with a wide-angle lens, one must take care not to distort the lines of the image too severely.  Buy this photo

Along the Gap of Dunloe we hiked past this bucolic scene around a ruined farmhouse.  I framed the image to include the horse carts and the rutted pathway.  Buy this photo

The Wild Atlantic Way showcases some of the most scenic views in all of Ireland as it winds through rolling hills toward the remote Blasket Islands.  Along the way the observant hiker will see dozens of strangely shaped stone enclosures called beehive huts, some of which date back to the Neolithic Period.  This image was shot with a telephoto lens to highlight the beehive huts and to compress the distance between the huts and the Blasket Islands dotting the coast of the Atlantic Ocean.  Buy this photo

The quaint seaside village of Dingle is chock full of charming stone houses with brightly painted doors and windows.  Because it was pouring rain all day and I was recovering from an illness, I brought only my phone’s camera.  Even so, I was able to make some nice images of the houses by using the Manual app to take control of the phone’s camera.  Buy this photo

Edinburgh, Scotland has a tremendous variety of architecture, which could be the subject of a separate post.  For today, I’ll close with this image of the ruins of the ancient abbey at Holyroodhouse at the end of the Royal Mile.  I shot with a wide-angle lens using a small aperture to maximize the depth-of-field and taking care to keep the horizon level so as not to distort the lines of the archways any more than necessary.  Buy this photo

For a refresher on architecture photography, check out this post: Post on Architecture Photography.

What are your favorite destinations for architecture?  Please share your thoughts in the comment box.

 

Focus on Dublin [Encore Publication]: Ireland’s main city overflows with Guinness, literature, history, and music

We began our rambles through Ireland and Scotland with a whirlwind two-day stay in Dublin.  The capital of the Republic of Ireland, Dublin is well known as the home of Guinness beer and for its literary and historical legacy, but perhaps less known as a remarkable hub of live music and contemporary fine dining.  It’s also a marvelous place to make images that highlight the old and the new elements of this vibrant city.  Here’s a brief photo essay along with some discussion of how the images were made.

Perhaps the world’s grandest study hall, Trinity College’s Long Room is a stately palace to higher learning.  Located next to the vault housing the famous Book of Kells (where photography is not permitted), the Long Room is best photographed with a wide-angle lens using natural light.  Here I shot from one end of the hall looking up at the ceiling and upper gallery.  Be careful to watch your horizons when making an architectural image from such an angle.  Buy this photo

Live trad (traditional Irish folk) music is a staple of Dublin nightlife, and nowhere is it better than at the famed O’Donoghue Pub, where in the 1960’s bands such as the Dubliners sparked the Irish folks music revival.  Irish pubs are convivial and interactive places, where you can mingle with the performers and other locals.

To make portraits of the musicians, sit close to the “stage” (there’s rarely a true stage in the formal sense, but rather a performer’s area) and shoot with a fast normal or portrait lens using a high ISO setting.  It helps to get to know a few of the players during their breaks.  Buy this photo

Dublin is a world-class literary city, with ties to James Joyce, W. B. Yeats, Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, G. B. Shaw, Samuel Beckett, and Seamus Heaney, among many other literary greats.  We took, and highly recommend, a literary walking tour led by scholar, author, and actor Colm Quilligan.  There are many photo opportunities to be found during this informative walk.  You can learn more about Colm’s walking tours here: http://www.dublinpubcrawl.com/writerswalk.htm.

A self-portrait made at The Duke Pub, where many of Dublin’s great authors took their liquid inspiration.  Remember to include yourself in some images, but always look for unusual perspectives.  Buy this photo

A park sculpture commemorates  the Great Famine of the 1840s.  To bring out the textures, I converted this image to black-and-white using Lightroom’s color channel tools, and boosted the contrast slightly.  Buy this photo

Dublin Castle dates from early Anglo-Norman times, and a guided tour provides a sweeping history of Dublin from its origins through the present day.

To photograph the Castle and Dublin’s other architectural gems, use a wide-angle lens.  Watch out for cluttered foregrounds and keep an eye on the lines at the edges of the frame, as it is tricky to avoid distortion when shooting up with a wide lens.  Here I also used a polarizing filter to add contrast to a rather bleak scene.  Buy this photo

The chapel within Dublin Castle offers many photographic possibilities.  Seek out the details in a place like this.  Here I’ve captured the beautiful (but, alas, no longer functioning) pipe organ.  I brought out the shadow detail and increased the vibrance during post-processing.  Buy this photo

It may or may not come as a surprise to learn that Ireland’s biggest attraction is the Guinness Storehouse.  While it’s easy to dismiss sites like this one–essentially a theme park dedicated to a beer brand–that would be a mistake.  The self-guided tour is fascinating for its historical, cultural, and architectural facets, and the view from the top-floor Gravity Bar (with an included pint of Guinness) is the best in Dublin.

The Guinness Storehouse was converted into a museum and tourist attraction, but happily they have retained much of the old brewing machinery, which makes a great photographic subject.  I used a touch of flash here to saturate the colors.  Buy this photo

My wife Mary pulls a perfect pint of Guinness.  It’s more fun to include traveling companions when they’re doing something locally inspired and interesting.  I used natural light with a fast portrait lens and relatively high ISO setting.  The cluttered background isn’t as distracting as it could be, because it documents the bustle of the place.  Buy this photo

Parting shot on our last night in Dublin.  Another trad music session.  This one (which also incorporates a self-portrait) was shot at the Cobblestone Pub.  It was an informal sit-in session, so I had the chance to chat with and really get to know several of the musicians before shooting their portraits.  Buy this photo

Have you visited Dublin?  What do you consider essential activities–and photographic subjects–in this city?  Please share your comments here.

Want to view posts about other travel photography destinations?  Find them all here: Posts on Destinations.

Revealing Portraits [Encore Publication]: Inspirational women of India are struggling to empower themselves and others

Travel photography is about more than simply recording what we see and do during our trips.  It is more important even than creating art from our experiences while traveling.  I believe travel photography also has an important role to play in documenting and communicating to broad audiences the present situation facing underrepresented, repressed, and abused communities, and advocating for change to improve on the present situation.

Today’s post illustrates this point.  In a series of four portraits made during my recent travels in the north of India, I document several of the serious struggles faced by the girls and women of India–abuse of street children, poverty and lack of education, forced early marriage, and acid attacks–and show how these brave young women are working to empower themselves and others like them to end these abuses.

First, we meet a 17-year-old girl from the slums of New Delhi.  Let’s call her Sheela (the NGO supporting her work has requested that I not use her real time in order to protect her identity).  Sheela is the principal organizer of 10,000 street kids from similar slums across the sprawling city.  She helped start a newspaper, called Balaknama, to give a voice to the street kids and expose their stories of child labor exploitation, police harassment, and physical abuse.  Through her efforts and those of other kids from the streets, the editors who advise them, and the NGO that funds them, Balaknama has helped improve the lives of the poorest and most vulnerable residents of Delhi.  My portrait of Sheela is set in Balaknama’s offices and shows her calm and inspiring strength.  Lit by available light only, this image was made with a fast prime portrait lens, shot from a low angle so as not to condescend to the subject, and using a wide aperture to soften the background.  The feeling this image evokes is one of quiet power and a strong drive to expose and right the wrongs of her society.

Sheela, a 17-year-old resident of Delhi’s slums, organizes 10,000 street kids and reports for a newspaper run by and for the street children of the city.  Buy this photo

Next, we meet a girl who was born into poverty in Delhi and was forced at an early age to beg to earn money for her family.  Let’s call her Anika.  School was not an option for her.  However, Anika found a way to earn more and to avoid begging by selling bead necklaces on the streets of the city.  The portrait shows the contrast of her daily life: hopeful yet exhausted, bright yet uneducated, strong yet vulnerable.  This portrait was made using natural light with just a touch of fill flash to accentuate the saturated colors of her outfit and her wares.  The emphasis was placed on Anika by use of the fill flash, by exposing for her face, and by blowing out the overexposed background.

Anika is one of Delhi’s poorer residents.  Unable to attend school, she sells beaded jewelry to make a few rupees for her family.  Buy this photo

In a small village in rural Rajasthan, we met Parma at her modest house.  Forced to marry at the age of 11, Parma had four daughters at an early age.  She is fiercely committed to ensuring her daughters receive a good education so that they will have more options than she had.  Parma made the brave decision to become one of the first women to join a cooperative formed to allow women of the village to learn to make handicrafts in order to earn money for their families.  She and her husband faced considerable scorn from neighbors and relatives over her decision to earn her own income, but now many other village women have seen the success of this program and have also joined.  Parma is proud to have learned to sign her name and read a few words, thanks to her older daughters’ having taught her.  My portrait shows Parma in her kitchen with her third daughter preparing tea in the background and a neighbor child just in front of her.  The image radiates beauty, dignity, strength, and resolve.  In this environmental portrait, I wanted to portray Parma in relation to her home, her family, and her community, so I placed her in the center, exposing and focusing on her face, and allowing her daughter to be clearly identifiable yet slightly out of focus.

Parma, a child bride, vowed to educate her four daughters and works in a women’s cooperative to earn extra money to fulfill her promise.  Buy this photo

Finally, we meet Rupa at Sheroe’s Cafe in Agra.  Sheroes’ 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, seek legal justice against her attacker, and access the surgical care required to reconstruct her face. The courage and resilience shown by Rupa and the other 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.  My portrait of Rupa is powerful because it doesn’t shy away from her scars but allows her courage, resilience, and beauty to shine through.  I got in close to Rupa using an 85-mm prime portrait lens and composed a head-and-shoulders image from eye level.  I exposed for her face and blouse, which she designed herself, bringing out the vibrant saturated colors.  A shallow depth-of-field ensured that Rupa’s face would be emphasized while the background would be soft.

Rupa was brutally attacked with acid by a relative when she was just 15 years old.  Rather than hide at home her whole life, she was empowered by the Stop Acid Attacks organization to live independently, fight for justice, and advocate to end acid attacks across India and Southeast Asia.  Buy this photo

I hope this series of portraits of four brave young women in India will inspire you, as their subjects inspired me, to advocate for improving women’s rights in this part of the world.  And more broadly, I hope you’ll recognize the power that travel photography has to give voice to the unheard and to fight for social change in the places where we travel.

Have you made the opportunity to advocate for change through your images?  Please share your story here!

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