Tag: music

Panama’s “First Cry of Independence” Celebrations [Encore Publication]: Serendipitous timing allowed me to capture images of a rarely seen festival

Departing Panama City for the historic and folkloric region of the Azuero Peninsula, we were very fortunate to arrive in the little town of Chitre on the day they celebrate Panama’s “First Cry of Independence”. The push for independence from Spain began here, then spread to the rest of the country. Whether halfway around the world or right in my home town, I’m always thrilled to have the chance to capture the special energy and tradition of a festival or celebration. The excitement is even greater when the festival, like this one, is off the tourist track and seen by very few people other than locals.  In today’s post I share some favorite images from the first two days of this festival, along with some notes about how they were made. Click on any of the images to visit my Panama photo gallery, where you can browse and purchase many more images from this remarkable country.

It’s a good idea to grab some “establishing shots” when photographing any festival or other large event. These images are made from a longer distance and/or with a wider lens than the close-up images that constitute the bulk of most portfolios. The establishing shots give a sense of scale so the viewer can understand the context for the other images. Here I used a slightly wide-angle lens to frame some of the parade participants against the lovely colonial church in the town’s main square.

Because festivals are very busy events, it’s important to look for clean backgrounds insofar as possible.  To make this portrait of two young Panamanians dressed in the national costume known as the pollera, I composed so as to minimize clutter in the background and also used a wide aperture (small f-stop number) to render the background in soft focus.  Too often photographers compose based only on the main subject, but a clean background is at least as important to the success of the image than an interesting foreground subject.

Not all portraits need to include the subject’s full face. I shot this colorfully attired marcher in profile so as to give a sense of color and motion, while revealing only one side of her face.

This young participant shows off her traditional Panamanian costume called a pollera. A wide aperture sets her off from the other participants in the background, while a fast shutter speed freezes the motion of her swirling pollera.

In this image I captured the whole contingent of young women in their variously colored polleras. The lighting conditions were harsh, so I set the exposure manually be metering on the fabric of their costumes. In post-processing I had to adjust the highlights and shadows to ensure the subjects were evenly illuminated.

The second day of independence festivities are celebrated in the small town of Villa de los Santos. I asked this parade participant to pose for a portrait in a spot with a clean background and lovely soft lighting, then got in close with a fast prime portrait lens set to a wide aperture (small f-stop number) to throw the background out of focus.  Soft lighting (which can be obtained by shooting near sunrise or sunset, or by moving the subject into a shaded area) makes vivid colors truly pop and flatters the subject of your portrait.

To make this portrait of a participant wearing a fanciful mask, I asked him to pose in a somewhat less cluttered spot, then made the image using a very shallow depth-of-field to emphasize the mask and throw the background into very soft focus.

The “First Cry of Independence” festivities last well into the night.  The extremely low-light conditions offer a photographer’s dilemma: either continue to shoot using only available light (and accept the added visual noise and motion blur) or switch to using flash (and live with its short coverage distance, artificial color cast, and distraction to the subjects).  I chose to work with just available light, boosting my camera’s ISO sensitivity setting to as high as I could get away with and using a fast prime lens at a very wide aperture to gather as much light as possible, which in turn allowed the use of a reasonably fast shutter speed.  The results are lovely: sharp dancers in the foreground with just a touch of motion blur, soft focus on the dancers and buildings in the background, and a soft and painterly feel for the scene that to me feels quintessentially Panamanian.

Sometimes it can be effective to embrace rather than avoid a cluttered background and to include it as part of the overall mood of the scene. That was my approach in making this image. I got in relatively close to the dancers in the foreground, using a moderate aperture setting to render the background crowds of spectators in soft focus, but still easy to discern. This gives the viewer a sense of being a part of the bigger celebration even while observing this intimate scene featuring the young couple.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this photo essay on the first days of Panama’s independence celebrations. Have you experienced a little known local festival or celebration? Please share your experiences by leaving a comment here.

Focus on Lisbon, Berlin, and Barcelona [Encore Publication]: History, architecture, and cultures yield boundless photographic opportunities

My wife and I recently returned from two weeks of travel in Europe to fulfill several of my photography assignments. I’ll publish separate posts in the coming weeks covering some of those professional assignments. In today’s post we’ll explore the vibrant capital cities of Lisbon, Berlin, and Barcelona. While each of these three cities has a personality very much its own, I’m hoping my images will demonstrate that photographing cities, like photographing people, is all about looking for what we have in common even as we celebrate our differences. Urban photography is special to me because cities are the places where history, architecture, and culture often align most dramatically to paint a full picture of how we live today. Note that all of these images and many more are available to view and, if desired, to purchase; just click on any image to view the gallery. Enjoy!

On arrival in Lisbon, we are treated to an early morning view of the old Moorish quarter of Alfama. I like to underexpose by 1-2 stops when shooting sunrises and sunsets to bring out more intensity in the colors. If in doubt, bracket your exposures and choose the one that best captures the scene as you experienced it, or combine the different exposures into a composite high dynamic range (HDR) image.
I loved the look and feel of the old streetcars plying the streets of Lisbon, so I found this picturesque spot and waited until the next tram came into view.
If you had told me one of the most amazing experiences in Lisbon is visiting a tile museum, I’d have answered it’s more exciting to watch the grass grow. But it turns out the National Azulejo (Tile) Museum is absolutely incredible from start to finish. This ornate chapel, decorated in azulejo tiles, is entirely contained within a part of the museum. When shooting interiors it is often advantageous to use a wide-angle lens, but it’s important to keep the camera level to the plane of the ground and avoid shooting upward or downward in order to avoid the severe proportional distortion that can occur in these situations. While it is possible to correct for this sort of distortion in post-processing software like Lightroom, it is preferable to get it right in-camera.
A nighttime street scene in Lisbon’s old Moorish neighborhood of Alfama. When handholding the camera in a low-light situation, especially when a small aperture is required for depth-of-field, it’s a good idea to boost the camera’s ISO sensitivity setting in order to achieve a relatively fast shutter speed.
We spent a full day exploring the Sintra region about an hour west of Lisbon, at the very far western edge of the European continent. Quinta da Regaleira is a wonderfully eccentric estate including a palace, a chapel, and several strange features adorned with symbols of alchemy, Masonry, the Knights Templar, and the Rosicrucians. Our favorite feature was this stone tower. I’m always on the lookout for repeating geometric patterns that often make for compelling images. It’s important to compose such shots carefully to enhance the power of the recurring pattern. I converted this image to black-and-white during postprocessing to give it a high-contrast graphic arts style look.

The Alfama neighborhood is famous as the birthplace of fado, a form of music typically performed by a solo singer accompanied by two Portuguese guitars. Fado is essentially a Portuguese version of the blues, with lyrics and melodies emphasizing the melancholy side of the culture. Most fado clubs feature extremely dim lighting to set the mood, and flash photography is strictly prohibited. This results in a technical challenge trying to capture good images. Here I used a very fast (f/1.4) prime lens almost all the way open and also boosted my camera’s ISO sensitivity setting to 6400 (as high as I like to go in order to avoid excessive digital noise), but still the required shutter speed was a rather slow 1/15 second. Instead of trying to capture the moving singer in tack-sharp fashion, I leaned into the mood of the place and allowed some motion blur to occur.
On our final day in Lisbon we explored Belem, an historic Medieval parish most well known for its medieval tower. Again, when shooting architecture with a wide-angle lens, try to shoot with the camera parallel to the ground to avoid distortion of the vertical lines. I also underexposed this image a bit to make for a more dramatic sky, recovering some of the shadow detail in post-processing.
Enjoying the Lisbon obsession, the sublime custard pastry known as Pastel de Belém, at the cafe that invented them (well, the recipe was probably borrowed from the Jerónimos Monastery next door). Food is a key part of any people’s culture, so I like to capture food scenes as part of every urban shoot. Insofar as possible, I try to arrange the various elements on the table so they tell a story in the frame of the image. Here I removed some of the items that cluttered the background, including just the pastries and the local coffee drinks. I try not to shoot straight down onto the food, as that usually results in unappealing shots. With food photography, some work is usually required in post-processing to adjust color temperatures and remove distractions like dirt and shadows.
After our stay in Lisbon, we enjoyed an unforgettable two days on assignment shooting the annual Mardi Gras Carnival festivities on the Poruguese owned island of Madeira. Those images will be featured in a separate post. Then, onward to Berlin. Our hotel was right next to the infamous Checkpoint Charlie section of the old Berlin Wall, shown here.
No visit to Berlin would be complete without passing through the stately neoclassical Brandenburg Gate. It can be very challenging to get a clean shot of very crowded iconic urban sites. Here I fitted a wide-angle lens, composed the shot looking straight toward the gate without pointing the camera up or down, and waited until nearly all of the tourists had left the frame. Some straightening of the vertical and horizontal lines still had to be done in post-processing to avoid the perspective distortion introduced by the very wide focal length.
Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial takes up a large city block and requires some time to take in and explore. To capture this large, powerful, and rather imposing monument, I composed using a moderately wide lens stopped down to a small aperture for maximum depth-of-field and keeping the horizon line with the background buildings completely straight. I converted to black-and-white in post-processing to achieve a stately, somber feel.
On our way home from Berlin, we had an overnight layover in Barcelona. With time in town for only one dinner and a bit of nighttime and morning sightseeing, we enjoyed Catalonian tapas for an authentic local dining experience. I arranged the stuffed pasta and wine glass in a pleasing pattern against the simple background of the wooden table and cropped the image to emphasize the food and wine without distractions. The color temperature usually needs to be adjusted during post-processing to give the food and beverage a realistic color.
Exploring Gaudí’s masterpiece, the cathedral known as La Sagrada Familia, at night. When shooting really iconic sites, I like to seek out unusual perspectives to avoid the dreaded “postcard shot”. Here I composed looking up from near the base of one of the towers, allowing the background to be filled by the dark night sky. This composition cleaned up most of the busy urban scene’s clutter and made for a dramatic capture of the basilica bathed in several types of light.
We had only 90 minutes to visit the interior of La Sagrada Familia before heading to Barcelona’s airport to fly home to San Francisco. I shot this self-portrait (Mary is also included) using a mirror positioned so visitors could view the soaring interior space of La Sagrada Familia.

I hope you enjoyed these favorite images from three great European cities, along with my descriptions of how the images were made. To view more images, or perhaps to purchase a few, just click on any of the photos to go to the gallery.

What are your favorite techniques or images from your urban photography? Do you have urban themes you like to document wherever you travel? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Want to read more posts about travel photography destinations? Find them all here: http://www.to-travel-hopefully.com/category/destinations/.

Focus on Asha Stanford Holi [Encore Publication] : Capturing the colors, joy, and exuberance of an iconic Indian celebration held close to home

I love all aspects of travel photography, but the moments I truly live for are when I have the opportunity to experience and to capture images of the world’s most exuberant celebrations.  The iconic Indian festival of Holi, celebrated annually throughout India in huge cities and small villages alike, is one of my absolute favorites.  This year I had the chance to shoot a large and vibrant Holi celebration without the need to fly for 30 hours to get to India.  As an official photographer for Asha Stanford’s Holi festival, I got to document all the color, joy, and revelry of a large, world-class Holi event, all within 20 minutes drive from my home.  In today’s post, I share some favorite images from the event along with some brief remarks about how each was made.  Note that all of these images and many more are available to view and purchase on my website–get there by clicking on any of the images here.

With colored powder and often sheets of water flying everywhere, Holi is by design a messy and mischievous celebration.  Protect yourself when “playing Holi” by wearing clothes you can part with after the event and by covering your camera body and lens with a rain sleeve.  Here’s the one I use, which is excellent–inexpensive, easy to use and very protective of the gear:

Note that even when using a high-quality rain cover like this one, the front end of the lens is still exposed, so be sure to protect your lens’ front element with a UV or Haze filter.  And to be extra safe, I brought only one camera body and only a single lens, which was an inexpensive but versatile “walk-around” travel zoom lens.

Crowded festivals, by their nature, have cluttered backgrounds.  When making portraits in such environments, I do try to reduce the clutter by choosing the background carefully, but capturing the moment is more important and in any case, it is futile trying to wait for completely uncluttered backgrounds.  In post-processing, some of the clutter can be minimized through careful cropping and the application of just a bit of post-crop vignetting.  Use too much vignetting, though, and the image begins to take on an artificial appearance.

To capture fast action, you obviously want to choose a fast shutter speed.  That’s no problem when shooting in bright sunshine such as we had during this Holi celebration.  Still, I choose a moderately high ISO (400) to ensure I could retain fast shutter speeds even when in the shade or when using a small aperture to maximize depth-of-field.

Get in close!  Portraits often are most effective when they emphasize a specific detail rather than show the entire environment.  To further emphasize that specific detail, try to select a wide aperture (low f-stop number) in order to obtain shallow depth-of-field.  I had only a relatively slow “walk-around” zoom lens with me, so for close-up portraits I shot wide open at f/4.5–not great for isolating the subject, but better than shooting at an even smaller aperture.  In typically less adverse environments, I would be shooting with a much faster portrait lens, most likely my favorite 85mm f/1.8 prime lens:

 

When your subject is backlit (the main light coming from behind), as is often the case when shooting outdoors in bright sunlight, be sure to choose exposure based on the main subject.  Here I used my camera’s spot metering mode to set the exposure based on the clothing of one of the people in the group, but it’s also fine to get your exposure by zooming in or walking up close to the group and then to set that exposure manually on your camera.  You can also use your camera’s exposure compensation control to dial up the automatic exposure by about 1.5 or 2 stops, but I recommend not trying to use automatic exposure modes in general.  If you use the exposure your camera’s auto mode chooses for you and your subject is strongly backlit, your image will be underexposed by typically 1.5-2 stops or even more.

I’m always on the lookout for great moments to capture.  When I saw this dad playing with his young daughter, I composed the frame around the two of them and started shooting continuously so as to get a shot at just the right instant.  During post-processing, I cropped the image to show only the portion that portrays the thrill and joy of the playful pair.

Careful composition is always important in photography, but it’s easy to forget this point during the heat of the moment when shooting in bustling and chaotic environments.  To compose this image, I framed it to get the splash of color from the two friends’ “high-five” moment right in front of the big sign boldly pronouncing, “COLOR”.  That’s a Holi moment.

One of the keys to successfully documenting huge festivals is finding the small, intimate moments.  Big, sweeping crowd shots showing chaotic motion are important to document, but it’s capturing those small interpersonal interactions that really make your portfolio shine.  I used as wide an aperture as I had available in order to cast the busy background in soft focus.

Performances are often a part of festivals, and these are wonderful fun to capture.  I’ve posted many times on the techniques required to make great images of performing arts, so I won’t repeat myself here.  Just be sure to compose appropriately, set the exposure correctly (challenging to do in direct sunlight), and shoot lots of images to be sure of capturing a few excellent ones.

The climactic moment of the Holi celebration comes near the end, when all the revelers simultaneous throw handfuls of colored powder high into the air.  Be ready for these big moments by preparing all your gear and composing all elements of the shot beforehand.  

To capture the sweeping scale of really big celebrations, sometimes it helps to make a panoramic image.  Some cameras can do this automatically in-the-camera, but I find those images don’t turn out very well, so I make panoramas manually by shooting a series of overlapping images that span the scene.  In theory this is quite simple.  Just take a series of photos starting from the far left side of the scene, then panning the camera a little bit to the right so the next photo just overlaps with the previous one, and so on until you reach the far right side of the scene.  You then use software such as Lightroom or Photoshop to stitch the separate, overlapping photos together into a single sweeping image.  In practice, this can be quite difficult.  I find the software often takes an extremely long time to process a panoramic image and sometimes even crashes while attempting to do so.  If you have a more powerful computer than I have, you may have an easier time with this process.  

Parting shot: When I see a great subject for a portrait, I will interact with him or her, get to know them a bit, then begin shooting with their permission.  Over time and in the heat of a celebration, they will forget I’m even there, but the resulting images will be better for the time spent interacting with the person first.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this photo essay and brief notes about how to shoot festivals and celebrations.  Whether we’re close to home or halfway around the world, such festive gatherings truly define the culture of the celebrants and make amazing photographic subjects.  If you’d like to read more posts about what to shoot while traveling or near home, find them all here: Posts about what to shoot.

What are your favorite celebrations to shoot, and how do you capture images there?  Please share your thoughts here!

 

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.

Focus on Carnival in Madeira [Encore Publication]: This tiny Portuguese island group celebrates a vibrant and unique Mardi Gras

When we think about Mardi Gras carnivals, most often the first locations that come to mind are Rio de Janeiro, New Orleans, and perhaps Trinidad.  But the start of the Lenten season is celebrated in many parts of the world with the outpouring of dance, music, color, and joy known as Carnival.  While each region’s celebrations have a few elements in common–typically the all include grand parades with samba dancers and floats, all decorated in lavish costumes–there are many notable regional differences.  For example, in my home in the San Francisco Bay Area, Carnaval SF is unique for its array of “comparsas” (samba school contingents) representing the cultural traditions of all of Latin America and the Caribbean as well as parts of Asia.

This year I had the great pleasure of capturing Mardi Gras Carnival images on assignment in Funchal, capital of the tiny island group of Madeira.  While politically a part of Portugal, Madeira is located off the coast of Morocco in North Africa and has a decidedly different cultural flair than what is found in mainland Portugal.  Samba and Carnival were essentially invented by African slaves in Brazil while it was a Portuguese colony, and the samba parade traditions have migrated back to Portugal where celebrations are held throughout the country.  Given its location between Africa and Europe, Madeira combines distinct cultural traditions from both regions and offers a special flavor of Carnival that I found exhilarating.  And best of all, the celebrations roll on over a whole week with numerous events, retaining a true local flavor with few tourists.

Today’s post features some of my favorite images from this year’s Carnival events on Madeira.  If you’d like to see more photos, or to purchase a few, please visit https://www.kadlerphotography.com/Travel-Photography/Madeira-Carnival/.  I am grateful to the Madeira Promotion Bureau for their assistance providing access to the Carnival events.  Enjoy!

I hope you enjoyed these images from this year’s Carnival events on Madeira.  Visit https://www.kadlerphotography.com/Travel-Photography/Madeira-Carnival/ to see more photos.  Again, a big thank-you to the Madeira Promotion Bureau for their assistance providing access to the Carnival events.
Have you discovered any less known locations for Carnival celebrations?  Please share your experiences and your photos here!

Focus on Lisbon, Berlin, and Barcelona [Encore Publication]: History, architecture, and cultures yield boundless photographic opportunities

My wife and I recently returned from two weeks of travel in Europe to fulfill several of my photography assignments. I’ll publish separate posts in the coming weeks covering some of those professional assignments. In today’s post we’ll explore the vibrant capital cities of Lisbon, Berlin, and Barcelona. While each of these three cities has a personality very much its own, I’m hoping my images will demonstrate that photographing cities, like photographing people, is all about looking for what we have in common even as we celebrate our differences. Urban photography is special to me because cities are the places where history, architecture, and culture often align most dramatically to paint a full picture of how we live today. Note that all of these images and many more are available to view and, if desired, to purchase; just click on any image to view the gallery. Enjoy!

On arrival in Lisbon, we are treated to an early morning view of the old Moorish quarter of Alfama. I like to underexpose by 1-2 stops when shooting sunrises and sunsets to bring out more intensity in the colors. If in doubt, bracket your exposures and choose the one that best captures the scene as you experienced it, or combine the different exposures into a composite high dynamic range (HDR) image.
I loved the look and feel of the old streetcars plying the streets of Lisbon, so I found this picturesque spot and waited until the next tram came into view.
If you had told me one of the most amazing experiences in Lisbon is visiting a tile museum, I’d have answered it’s more exciting to watch the grass grow. But it turns out the National Azulejo (Tile) Museum is absolutely incredible from start to finish. This ornate chapel, decorated in azulejo tiles, is entirely contained within a part of the museum. When shooting interiors it is often advantageous to use a wide-angle lens, but it’s important to keep the camera level to the plane of the ground and avoid shooting upward or downward in order to avoid the severe proportional distortion that can occur in these situations. While it is possible to correct for this sort of distortion in post-processing software like Lightroom, it is preferable to get it right in-camera.
A nighttime street scene in Lisbon’s old Moorish neighborhood of Alfama. When handholding the camera in a low-light situation, especially when a small aperture is required for depth-of-field, it’s a good idea to boost the camera’s ISO sensitivity setting in order to achieve a relatively fast shutter speed.
We spent a full day exploring the Sintra region about an hour west of Lisbon, at the very far western edge of the European continent. Quinta da Regaleira is a wonderfully eccentric estate including a palace, a chapel, and several strange features adorned with symbols of alchemy, Masonry, the Knights Templar, and the Rosicrucians. Our favorite feature was this stone tower. I’m always on the lookout for repeating geometric patterns that often make for compelling images. It’s important to compose such shots carefully to enhance the power of the recurring pattern. I converted this image to black-and-white during postprocessing to give it a high-contrast graphic arts style look.

The Alfama neighborhood is famous as the birthplace of fado, a form of music typically performed by a solo singer accompanied by two Portuguese guitars. Fado is essentially a Portuguese version of the blues, with lyrics and melodies emphasizing the melancholy side of the culture. Most fado clubs feature extremely dim lighting to set the mood, and flash photography is strictly prohibited. This results in a technical challenge trying to capture good images. Here I used a very fast (f/1.4) prime lens almost all the way open and also boosted my camera’s ISO sensitivity setting to 6400 (as high as I like to go in order to avoid excessive digital noise), but still the required shutter speed was a rather slow 1/15 second. Instead of trying to capture the moving singer in tack-sharp fashion, I leaned into the mood of the place and allowed some motion blur to occur.
On our final day in Lisbon we explored Belem, an historic Medieval parish most well known for its medieval tower. Again, when shooting architecture with a wide-angle lens, try to shoot with the camera parallel to the ground to avoid distortion of the vertical lines. I also underexposed this image a bit to make for a more dramatic sky, recovering some of the shadow detail in post-processing.
Enjoying the Lisbon obsession, the sublime custard pastry known as Pastel de Belém, at the cafe that invented them (well, the recipe was probably borrowed from the Jerónimos Monastery next door). Food is a key part of any people’s culture, so I like to capture food scenes as part of every urban shoot. Insofar as possible, I try to arrange the various elements on the table so they tell a story in the frame of the image. Here I removed some of the items that cluttered the background, including just the pastries and the local coffee drinks. I try not to shoot straight down onto the food, as that usually results in unappealing shots. With food photography, some work is usually required in post-processing to adjust color temperatures and remove distractions like dirt and shadows.
After our stay in Lisbon, we enjoyed an unforgettable two days on assignment shooting the annual Mardi Gras Carnival festivities on the Poruguese owned island of Madeira. Those images will be featured in a separate post. Then, onward to Berlin. Our hotel was right next to the infamous Checkpoint Charlie section of the old Berlin Wall, shown here.
No visit to Berlin would be complete without passing through the stately neoclassical Brandenburg Gate. It can be very challenging to get a clean shot of very crowded iconic urban sites. Here I fitted a wide-angle lens, composed the shot looking straight toward the gate without pointing the camera up or down, and waited until nearly all of the tourists had left the frame. Some straightening of the vertical and horizontal lines still had to be done in post-processing to avoid the perspective distortion introduced by the very wide focal length.
Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial takes up a large city block and requires some time to take in and explore. To capture this large, powerful, and rather imposing monument, I composed using a moderately wide lens stopped down to a small aperture for maximum depth-of-field and keeping the horizon line with the background buildings completely straight. I converted to black-and-white in post-processing to achieve a stately, somber feel.
On our way home from Berlin, we had an overnight layover in Barcelona. With time in town for only one dinner and a bit of nighttime and morning sightseeing, we enjoyed Catalonian tapas for an authentic local dining experience. I arranged the stuffed pasta and wine glass in a pleasing pattern against the simple background of the wooden table and cropped the image to emphasize the food and wine without distractions. The color temperature usually needs to be adjusted during post-processing to give the food and beverage a realistic color.
Exploring Gaudí’s masterpiece, the cathedral known as La Sagrada Familia, at night. When shooting really iconic sites, I like to seek out unusual perspectives to avoid the dreaded “postcard shot”. Here I composed looking up from near the base of one of the towers, allowing the background to be filled by the dark night sky. This composition cleaned up most of the busy urban scene’s clutter and made for a dramatic capture of the basilica bathed in several types of light.
We had only 90 minutes to visit the interior of La Sagrada Familia before heading to Barcelona’s airport to fly home to San Francisco. I shot this self-portrait (Mary is also included) using a mirror positioned so visitors could view the soaring interior space of La Sagrada Familia.

I hope you enjoyed these favorite images from three great European cities, along with my descriptions of how the images were made. To view more images, or perhaps to purchase a few, just click on any of the photos to go to the gallery.

What are your favorite techniques or images from your urban photography? Do you have urban themes you like to document wherever you travel? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Want to read more posts about travel photography destinations? Find them all here: http://www.to-travel-hopefully.com/category/destinations/.

Focus on Carnival in Madeira [Encore Publication]: This tiny Portuguese island group celebrates a vibrant and unique Mardi Gras

When we think about Mardi Gras carnivals, most often the first locations that come to mind are Rio de Janeiro, New Orleans, and perhaps Trinidad.  But the start of the Lenten season is celebrated in many parts of the world with the outpouring of dance, music, color, and joy known as Carnival.  While each region’s celebrations have a few elements in common–typically the all include grand parades with samba dancers and floats, all decorated in lavish costumes–there are many notable regional differences.  For example, in my home in the San Francisco Bay Area, Carnaval SF is unique for its array of “comparsas” (samba school contingents) representing the cultural traditions of all of Latin America and the Caribbean as well as parts of Asia.

This year I had the great pleasure of capturing Mardi Gras Carnival images on assignment in Funchal, capital of the tiny island group of Madeira.  While politically a part of Portugal, Madeira is located off the coast of Morocco in North Africa and has a decidedly different cultural flair than what is found in mainland Portugal.  Samba and Carnival were essentially invented by African slaves in Brazil while it was a Portuguese colony, and the samba parade traditions have migrated back to Portugal where celebrations are held throughout the country.  Given its location between Africa and Europe, Madeira combines distinct cultural traditions from both regions and offers a special flavor of Carnival that I found exhilarating.  And best of all, the celebrations roll on over a whole week with numerous events, retaining a true local flavor with few tourists.

Today’s post features some of my favorite images from this year’s Carnival events on Madeira.  If you’d like to see more photos, or to purchase a few, please visit https://www.kadlerphotography.com/Travel-Photography/Madeira-Carnival/.  I am grateful to the Madeira Promotion Bureau for their assistance providing access to the Carnival events.  Enjoy!

I hope you enjoyed these images from this year’s Carnival events on Madeira.  Visit https://www.kadlerphotography.com/Travel-Photography/Madeira-Carnival/ to see more photos.  Again, a big thank-you to the Madeira Promotion Bureau for their assistance providing access to the Carnival events.
Have you discovered any less known locations for Carnival celebrations?  Please share your experiences and your photos here!

Panama’s “First Cry of Independence” Celebrations [Encore Publication]: Serendipitous timing allowed me to capture images of a rarely seen festival

Departing Panama City for the historic and folkloric region of the Azuero Peninsula, we were very fortunate to arrive in the little town of Chitre on the day they celebrate Panama’s “First Cry of Independence”. The push for independence from Spain began here, then spread to the rest of the country. Whether halfway around the world or right in my home town, I’m always thrilled to have the chance to capture the special energy and tradition of a festival or celebration. The excitement is even greater when the festival, like this one, is off the tourist track and seen by very few people other than locals.  In today’s post I share some favorite images from the first two days of this festival, along with some notes about how they were made. Click on any of the images to visit my Panama photo gallery, where you can browse and purchase many more images from this remarkable country.

It’s a good idea to grab some “establishing shots” when photographing any festival or other large event. These images are made from a longer distance and/or with a wider lens than the close-up images that constitute the bulk of most portfolios. The establishing shots give a sense of scale so the viewer can understand the context for the other images. Here I used a slightly wide-angle lens to frame some of the parade participants against the lovely colonial church in the town’s main square.

Because festivals are very busy events, it’s important to look for clean backgrounds insofar as possible.  To make this portrait of two young Panamanians dressed in the national costume known as the pollera, I composed so as to minimize clutter in the background and also used a wide aperture (small f-stop number) to render the background in soft focus.  Too often photographers compose based only on the main subject, but a clean background is at least as important to the success of the image than an interesting foreground subject.

Not all portraits need to include the subject’s full face. I shot this colorfully attired marcher in profile so as to give a sense of color and motion, while revealing only one side of her face.

This young participant shows off her traditional Panamanian costume called a pollera. A wide aperture sets her off from the other participants in the background, while a fast shutter speed freezes the motion of her swirling pollera.

In this image I captured the whole contingent of young women in their variously colored polleras. The lighting conditions were harsh, so I set the exposure manually be metering on the fabric of their costumes. In post-processing I had to adjust the highlights and shadows to ensure the subjects were evenly illuminated.

The second day of independence festivities are celebrated in the small town of Villa de los Santos. I asked this parade participant to pose for a portrait in a spot with a clean background and lovely soft lighting, then got in close with a fast prime portrait lens set to a wide aperture (small f-stop number) to throw the background out of focus.  Soft lighting (which can be obtained by shooting near sunrise or sunset, or by moving the subject into a shaded area) makes vivid colors truly pop and flatters the subject of your portrait.

To make this portrait of a participant wearing a fanciful mask, I asked him to pose in a somewhat less cluttered spot, then made the image using a very shallow depth-of-field to emphasize the mask and throw the background into very soft focus.

The “First Cry of Independence” festivities last well into the night.  The extremely low-light conditions offer a photographer’s dilemma: either continue to shoot using only available light (and accept the added visual noise and motion blur) or switch to using flash (and live with its short coverage distance, artificial color cast, and distraction to the subjects).  I chose to work with just available light, boosting my camera’s ISO sensitivity setting to as high as I could get away with and using a fast prime lens at a very wide aperture to gather as much light as possible, which in turn allowed the use of a reasonably fast shutter speed.  The results are lovely: sharp dancers in the foreground with just a touch of motion blur, soft focus on the dancers and buildings in the background, and a soft and painterly feel for the scene that to me feels quintessentially Panamanian.

Sometimes it can be effective to embrace rather than avoid a cluttered background and to include it as part of the overall mood of the scene. That was my approach in making this image. I got in relatively close to the dancers in the foreground, using a moderate aperture setting to render the background crowds of spectators in soft focus, but still easy to discern. This gives the viewer a sense of being a part of the bigger celebration even while observing this intimate scene featuring the young couple.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this photo essay on the first days of Panama’s independence celebrations. Have you experienced a little known local festival or celebration? Please share your experiences by leaving a comment here.

Focus on Lisbon, Berlin, and Barcelona [Encore Publication]: History, architecture, and cultures yield boundless photographic opportunities

My wife and I recently returned from two weeks of travel in Europe to fulfill several of my photography assignments. I’ll publish separate posts in the coming weeks covering some of those professional assignments. In today’s post we’ll explore the vibrant capital cities of Lisbon, Berlin, and Barcelona. While each of these three cities has a personality very much its own, I’m hoping my images will demonstrate that photographing cities, like photographing people, is all about looking for what we have in common even as we celebrate our differences. Urban photography is special to me because cities are the places where history, architecture, and culture often align most dramatically to paint a full picture of how we live today. Note that all of these images and many more are available to view and, if desired, to purchase; just click on any image to view the gallery. Enjoy!

On arrival in Lisbon, we are treated to an early morning view of the old Moorish quarter of Alfama. I like to underexpose by 1-2 stops when shooting sunrises and sunsets to bring out more intensity in the colors. If in doubt, bracket your exposures and choose the one that best captures the scene as you experienced it, or combine the different exposures into a composite high dynamic range (HDR) image.
I loved the look and feel of the old streetcars plying the streets of Lisbon, so I found this picturesque spot and waited until the next tram came into view.
If you had told me one of the most amazing experiences in Lisbon is visiting a tile museum, I’d have answered it’s more exciting to watch the grass grow. But it turns out the National Azulejo (Tile) Museum is absolutely incredible from start to finish. This ornate chapel, decorated in azulejo tiles, is entirely contained within a part of the museum. When shooting interiors it is often advantageous to use a wide-angle lens, but it’s important to keep the camera level to the plane of the ground and avoid shooting upward or downward in order to avoid the severe proportional distortion that can occur in these situations. While it is possible to correct for this sort of distortion in post-processing software like Lightroom, it is preferable to get it right in-camera.
A nighttime street scene in Lisbon’s old Moorish neighborhood of Alfama. When handholding the camera in a low-light situation, especially when a small aperture is required for depth-of-field, it’s a good idea to boost the camera’s ISO sensitivity setting in order to achieve a relatively fast shutter speed.
We spent a full day exploring the Sintra region about an hour west of Lisbon, at the very far western edge of the European continent. Quinta da Regaleira is a wonderfully eccentric estate including a palace, a chapel, and several strange features adorned with symbols of alchemy, Masonry, the Knights Templar, and the Rosicrucians. Our favorite feature was this stone tower. I’m always on the lookout for repeating geometric patterns that often make for compelling images. It’s important to compose such shots carefully to enhance the power of the recurring pattern. I converted this image to black-and-white during postprocessing to give it a high-contrast graphic arts style look.

The Alfama neighborhood is famous as the birthplace of fado, a form of music typically performed by a solo singer accompanied by two Portuguese guitars. Fado is essentially a Portuguese version of the blues, with lyrics and melodies emphasizing the melancholy side of the culture. Most fado clubs feature extremely dim lighting to set the mood, and flash photography is strictly prohibited. This results in a technical challenge trying to capture good images. Here I used a very fast (f/1.4) prime lens almost all the way open and also boosted my camera’s ISO sensitivity setting to 6400 (as high as I like to go in order to avoid excessive digital noise), but still the required shutter speed was a rather slow 1/15 second. Instead of trying to capture the moving singer in tack-sharp fashion, I leaned into the mood of the place and allowed some motion blur to occur.
On our final day in Lisbon we explored Belem, an historic Medieval parish most well known for its medieval tower. Again, when shooting architecture with a wide-angle lens, try to shoot with the camera parallel to the ground to avoid distortion of the vertical lines. I also underexposed this image a bit to make for a more dramatic sky, recovering some of the shadow detail in post-processing.
Enjoying the Lisbon obsession, the sublime custard pastry known as Pastel de Belém, at the cafe that invented them (well, the recipe was probably borrowed from the Jerónimos Monastery next door). Food is a key part of any people’s culture, so I like to capture food scenes as part of every urban shoot. Insofar as possible, I try to arrange the various elements on the table so they tell a story in the frame of the image. Here I removed some of the items that cluttered the background, including just the pastries and the local coffee drinks. I try not to shoot straight down onto the food, as that usually results in unappealing shots. With food photography, some work is usually required in post-processing to adjust color temperatures and remove distractions like dirt and shadows.
After our stay in Lisbon, we enjoyed an unforgettable two days on assignment shooting the annual Mardi Gras Carnival festivities on the Poruguese owned island of Madeira. Those images will be featured in a separate post. Then, onward to Berlin. Our hotel was right next to the infamous Checkpoint Charlie section of the old Berlin Wall, shown here.
No visit to Berlin would be complete without passing through the stately neoclassical Brandenburg Gate. It can be very challenging to get a clean shot of very crowded iconic urban sites. Here I fitted a wide-angle lens, composed the shot looking straight toward the gate without pointing the camera up or down, and waited until nearly all of the tourists had left the frame. Some straightening of the vertical and horizontal lines still had to be done in post-processing to avoid the perspective distortion introduced by the very wide focal length.
Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial takes up a large city block and requires some time to take in and explore. To capture this large, powerful, and rather imposing monument, I composed using a moderately wide lens stopped down to a small aperture for maximum depth-of-field and keeping the horizon line with the background buildings completely straight. I converted to black-and-white in post-processing to achieve a stately, somber feel.
On our way home from Berlin, we had an overnight layover in Barcelona. With time in town for only one dinner and a bit of nighttime and morning sightseeing, we enjoyed Catalonian tapas for an authentic local dining experience. I arranged the stuffed pasta and wine glass in a pleasing pattern against the simple background of the wooden table and cropped the image to emphasize the food and wine without distractions. The color temperature usually needs to be adjusted during post-processing to give the food and beverage a realistic color.
Exploring Gaudí’s masterpiece, the cathedral known as La Sagrada Familia, at night. When shooting really iconic sites, I like to seek out unusual perspectives to avoid the dreaded “postcard shot”. Here I composed looking up from near the base of one of the towers, allowing the background to be filled by the dark night sky. This composition cleaned up most of the busy urban scene’s clutter and made for a dramatic capture of the basilica bathed in several types of light.
We had only 90 minutes to visit the interior of La Sagrada Familia before heading to Barcelona’s airport to fly home to San Francisco. I shot this self-portrait (Mary is also included) using a mirror positioned so visitors could view the soaring interior space of La Sagrada Familia.

I hope you enjoyed these favorite images from three great European cities, along with my descriptions of how the images were made. To view more images, or perhaps to purchase a few, just click on any of the photos to go to the gallery.

What are your favorite techniques or images from your urban photography? Do you have urban themes you like to document wherever you travel? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Want to read more posts about travel photography destinations? Find them all here: http://www.to-travel-hopefully.com/category/destinations/.

Focus on Carnival in Madeira [Encore Publication]: This tiny Portuguese island group celebrates a vibrant and unique Mardi Gras

When we think about Mardi Gras carnivals, most often the first locations that come to mind are Rio de Janeiro, New Orleans, and perhaps Trinidad.  But the start of the Lenten season is celebrated in many parts of the world with the outpouring of dance, music, color, and joy known as Carnival.  While each region’s celebrations have a few elements in common–typically the all include grand parades with samba dancers and floats, all decorated in lavish costumes–there are many notable regional differences.  For example, in my home in the San Francisco Bay Area, Carnaval SF is unique for its array of “comparsas” (samba school contingents) representing the cultural traditions of all of Latin America and the Caribbean as well as parts of Asia.

This year I had the great pleasure of capturing Mardi Gras Carnival images on assignment in Funchal, capital of the tiny island group of Madeira.  While politically a part of Portugal, Madeira is located off the coast of Morocco in North Africa and has a decidedly different cultural flair than what is found in mainland Portugal.  Samba and Carnival were essentially invented by African slaves in Brazil while it was a Portuguese colony, and the samba parade traditions have migrated back to Portugal where celebrations are held throughout the country.  Given its location between Africa and Europe, Madeira combines distinct cultural traditions from both regions and offers a special flavor of Carnival that I found exhilarating.  And best of all, the celebrations roll on over a whole week with numerous events, retaining a true local flavor with few tourists.

Today’s post features some of my favorite images from this year’s Carnival events on Madeira.  If you’d like to see more photos, or to purchase a few, please visit https://www.kadlerphotography.com/Travel-Photography/Madeira-Carnival/.  I am grateful to the Madeira Promotion Bureau for their assistance providing access to the Carnival events.  Enjoy!

I hope you enjoyed these images from this year’s Carnival events on Madeira.  Visit https://www.kadlerphotography.com/Travel-Photography/Madeira-Carnival/ to see more photos.  Again, a big thank-you to the Madeira Promotion Bureau for their assistance providing access to the Carnival events.
Have you discovered any less known locations for Carnival celebrations?  Please share your experiences and your photos here!

Focus on Edinburgh [Encore Publication]: Ancient and modern, Scotland’s capital city offers great architecture, museums, and more

At the end of our two-week hiking adventure in Ireland, we added a stop in Edinburgh for a family visit.  Ancient and modern at the same time, Scotland’s capital offers a wide range of experiences for the traveler, and a wide array of subjects for the travel photographer.  From architecture to museums, castles to palaces, glorious views and creative contemporary cuisine, this city has become a world-class destination.  Here is a brief photo essay capturing some of our experiences there.

The main attraction, dominating the city from its high central vantage point, is the ancient Edinburgh Castle.  It’s an easy walk from the center of town up the hill to tour the castle.  On the way up, a variety of interesting views of the castle unfold.  Try different lenses and compositions to take advantage of the many moods of this place.

Edinburgh Castle towers above the city center and offers a variety of different perspectives for the photographer.  Here I’ve shot from halfway up the hill using a telephoto lens and polarizing filter to isolate this one portion of the edifice and to enhance the stonework and the sky.  Buy this photo

Edinburgh’s Royal Mile stretches from the Castle down to the Palace at Holyrood House.  It’s easy to see this street as a shopping mall jammed with tourists, but it would be a shame to overlook the stately old architecture and the little closes (alleyways) off the main street.

To make this image along the Royal Mile, I chose an unusual perspective and used a medium telephoto lens to align the different colors, textures, and angles of the statue with the cathedral.  Buy this photo

Edinburgh is changing.  During several visits over the decades, I’ve heard many a bagpiper playing in the center of the city, but this is the first time I’ve met a female piper.  She was happy to pose for a portrait.  Buy this photo

Brightly painted façades lend a splash of color to the old stone architecture in this lovely neighborhood.  Buy this photo

Scottish food has also evolved a great deal in recent years, with several restaurants serving contemporary takes on traditional Scottish dishes.  Nowhere is the ambiance nicer than at the Witchery by the Castle, along the Royal Mile.

To capture the lovely interior of the Witchery, I used a fast normal lens and a high ISO setting.  This scene was lit entirely by candlelight and a few sconce lights in the ceiling.  Buy this photo

Revisiting Edinburgh Castle on our second day, I wanted to shoot it from a different perspective at a different time of day.  During post-processing I decided that a black-and-white rendering of the image would highlight the austere tone of the castle.  Buy this photo

Edinburgh has a proud literary tradition, from Burns to Scott to Stevenson.  The city’s literature museum, while small, is worth a visit.

I couldn’t resist capturing this display sign in the Writers’ Museum highlighting the Stevenson quote that graces the name of this website.  For more on the importance of this quote to the development of my passion for travel and photography, please see this page: About To Travel Hopefully.

At the other end of the Royal Mile from the Castle lies the Palace of Holyroodhouse.  This is the Queen’s official residence when she’s in Scotland, and its tour is first-rate.  While photography is not allowed inside the lovely palace, it is okay to photograph the stately and much older abbey adjacent to the palace.

Again here, I tried to seek out an unusual perspective in this shot of the abbey at Holyroodhouse.  I shot upward with a wide-angle lens, using spot metering to expose for the stonework and a small aperture to provide broader depth-of-field.  Buy this photo

I made this portrait of our daughter with two of her friends from university by stepping back and framing them using a medium portrait lens.  I chose a medium aperture to ensure sharp focus on the subjects while also keeping the façade of the abbey reasonably sharp.  Buy this photo

Behind Holyroodhouse is a hill towering above the city.  A short but fairly strenuous hike leads to Arthur’s Seat at the summit.  From the summit there are glorious views over the whole of the Edinburgh area.  This image of the Palace at Holyroodhouse was shot from partway up the hill.

A view of Holyroodhouse from partway up the hike to Arthur’s Seat.  A polarizer helped bring out the drama in the sky and the saturated green of the lawns.  Buy this photo

On our final evening in Edinburgh, we dined on exquisite contemporary Scottish cuisine at the Tower Restaurant.  Sitting atop the Scottish National Museum, this spot has marvelous views over the city to the castle.  The view shown in this image was just as marvelous.

To photograph the beautifully plated trio of smoked Scottish salmon accompanied by a glass of old single malt whisky, I shot from above using a touch of off-camera flash to balance the ambient light of the restaurant.  I used a diffuser on the flash and bounced the flash off the wall to soften its light.  To learn more about food photography, check out this post: Post on Food Photography     Buy this photo

Scottish traditional music is alive and well and performed almost every night at Sandy Bell’s Pub.  This portrait was made using my favorite portrait lens set to a wide aperture, with a high ISO setting on the camera.  The shallow depth of field throws the whistle player into soft focus, so the emphasis in the image is placed on the fiddler.  Buy this photo

Have you visited Edinburgh?  What are your favorite spots there?  What experiences should a photographer be sure to seek out?  Please leave your comments here.

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

Focus on Carnival in Madeira [Encore Publication]: This tiny Portuguese island group celebrates a vibrant and unique Mardi Gras

When we think about Mardi Gras carnivals, most often the first locations that come to mind are Rio de Janeiro, New Orleans, and perhaps Trinidad.  But the start of the Lenten season is celebrated in many parts of the world with the outpouring of dance, music, color, and joy known as Carnival.  While each region’s celebrations have a few elements in common–typically the all include grand parades with samba dancers and floats, all decorated in lavish costumes–there are many notable regional differences.  For example, in my home in the San Francisco Bay Area, Carnaval SF is unique for its array of “comparsas” (samba school contingents) representing the cultural traditions of all of Latin America and the Caribbean as well as parts of Asia.

This year I had the great pleasure of capturing Mardi Gras Carnival images on assignment in Funchal, capital of the tiny island group of Madeira.  While politically a part of Portugal, Madeira is located off the coast of Morocco in North Africa and has a decidedly different cultural flair than what is found in mainland Portugal.  Samba and Carnival were essentially invented by African slaves in Brazil while it was a Portuguese colony, and the samba parade traditions have migrated back to Portugal where celebrations are held throughout the country.  Given its location between Africa and Europe, Madeira combines distinct cultural traditions from both regions and offers a special flavor of Carnival that I found exhilarating.  And best of all, the celebrations roll on over a whole week with numerous events, retaining a true local flavor with few tourists.

Today’s post features some of my favorite images from this year’s Carnival events on Madeira.  If you’d like to see more photos, or to purchase a few, please visit https://www.kadlerphotography.com/Travel-Photography/Madeira-Carnival/.  I am grateful to the Madeira Promotion Bureau for their assistance providing access to the Carnival events.  Enjoy!

I hope you enjoyed these images from this year’s Carnival events on Madeira.  Visit https://www.kadlerphotography.com/Travel-Photography/Madeira-Carnival/ to see more photos.  Again, a big thank-you to the Madeira Promotion Bureau for their assistance providing access to the Carnival events.
Have you discovered any less known locations for Carnival celebrations?  Please share your experiences and your photos here!

Focus on Lisbon, Berlin, and Barcelona [Encore Publication]: History, architecture, and cultures yield boundless photographic opportunities

My wife and I recently returned from two weeks of travel in Europe to fulfill several of my photography assignments. I’ll publish separate posts in the coming weeks covering some of those professional assignments. In today’s post we’ll explore the vibrant capital cities of Lisbon, Berlin, and Barcelona. While each of these three cities has a personality very much its own, I’m hoping my images will demonstrate that photographing cities, like photographing people, is all about looking for what we have in common even as we celebrate our differences. Urban photography is special to me because cities are the places where history, architecture, and culture often align most dramatically to paint a full picture of how we live today. Note that all of these images and many more are available to view and, if desired, to purchase; just click on any image to view the gallery. Enjoy!

On arrival in Lisbon, we are treated to an early morning view of the old Moorish quarter of Alfama. I like to underexpose by 1-2 stops when shooting sunrises and sunsets to bring out more intensity in the colors. If in doubt, bracket your exposures and choose the one that best captures the scene as you experienced it, or combine the different exposures into a composite high dynamic range (HDR) image.
I loved the look and feel of the old streetcars plying the streets of Lisbon, so I found this picturesque spot and waited until the next tram came into view.
If you had told me one of the most amazing experiences in Lisbon is visiting a tile museum, I’d have answered it’s more exciting to watch the grass grow. But it turns out the National Azulejo (Tile) Museum is absolutely incredible from start to finish. This ornate chapel, decorated in azulejo tiles, is entirely contained within a part of the museum. When shooting interiors it is often advantageous to use a wide-angle lens, but it’s important to keep the camera level to the plane of the ground and avoid shooting upward or downward in order to avoid the severe proportional distortion that can occur in these situations. While it is possible to correct for this sort of distortion in post-processing software like Lightroom, it is preferable to get it right in-camera.
A nighttime street scene in Lisbon’s old Moorish neighborhood of Alfama. When handholding the camera in a low-light situation, especially when a small aperture is required for depth-of-field, it’s a good idea to boost the camera’s ISO sensitivity setting in order to achieve a relatively fast shutter speed.
We spent a full day exploring the Sintra region about an hour west of Lisbon, at the very far western edge of the European continent. Quinta da Regaleira is a wonderfully eccentric estate including a palace, a chapel, and several strange features adorned with symbols of alchemy, Masonry, the Knights Templar, and the Rosicrucians. Our favorite feature was this stone tower. I’m always on the lookout for repeating geometric patterns that often make for compelling images. It’s important to compose such shots carefully to enhance the power of the recurring pattern. I converted this image to black-and-white during postprocessing to give it a high-contrast graphic arts style look.

The Alfama neighborhood is famous as the birthplace of fado, a form of music typically performed by a solo singer accompanied by two Portuguese guitars. Fado is essentially a Portuguese version of the blues, with lyrics and melodies emphasizing the melancholy side of the culture. Most fado clubs feature extremely dim lighting to set the mood, and flash photography is strictly prohibited. This results in a technical challenge trying to capture good images. Here I used a very fast (f/1.4) prime lens almost all the way open and also boosted my camera’s ISO sensitivity setting to 6400 (as high as I like to go in order to avoid excessive digital noise), but still the required shutter speed was a rather slow 1/15 second. Instead of trying to capture the moving singer in tack-sharp fashion, I leaned into the mood of the place and allowed some motion blur to occur.
On our final day in Lisbon we explored Belem, an historic Medieval parish most well known for its medieval tower. Again, when shooting architecture with a wide-angle lens, try to shoot with the camera parallel to the ground to avoid distortion of the vertical lines. I also underexposed this image a bit to make for a more dramatic sky, recovering some of the shadow detail in post-processing.
Enjoying the Lisbon obsession, the sublime custard pastry known as Pastel de Belém, at the cafe that invented them (well, the recipe was probably borrowed from the Jerónimos Monastery next door). Food is a key part of any people’s culture, so I like to capture food scenes as part of every urban shoot. Insofar as possible, I try to arrange the various elements on the table so they tell a story in the frame of the image. Here I removed some of the items that cluttered the background, including just the pastries and the local coffee drinks. I try not to shoot straight down onto the food, as that usually results in unappealing shots. With food photography, some work is usually required in post-processing to adjust color temperatures and remove distractions like dirt and shadows.
After our stay in Lisbon, we enjoyed an unforgettable two days on assignment shooting the annual Mardi Gras Carnival festivities on the Poruguese owned island of Madeira. Those images will be featured in a separate post. Then, onward to Berlin. Our hotel was right next to the infamous Checkpoint Charlie section of the old Berlin Wall, shown here.
No visit to Berlin would be complete without passing through the stately neoclassical Brandenburg Gate. It can be very challenging to get a clean shot of very crowded iconic urban sites. Here I fitted a wide-angle lens, composed the shot looking straight toward the gate without pointing the camera up or down, and waited until nearly all of the tourists had left the frame. Some straightening of the vertical and horizontal lines still had to be done in post-processing to avoid the perspective distortion introduced by the very wide focal length.
Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial takes up a large city block and requires some time to take in and explore. To capture this large, powerful, and rather imposing monument, I composed using a moderately wide lens stopped down to a small aperture for maximum depth-of-field and keeping the horizon line with the background buildings completely straight. I converted to black-and-white in post-processing to achieve a stately, somber feel.
On our way home from Berlin, we had an overnight layover in Barcelona. With time in town for only one dinner and a bit of nighttime and morning sightseeing, we enjoyed Catalonian tapas for an authentic local dining experience. I arranged the stuffed pasta and wine glass in a pleasing pattern against the simple background of the wooden table and cropped the image to emphasize the food and wine without distractions. The color temperature usually needs to be adjusted during post-processing to give the food and beverage a realistic color.
Exploring Gaudí’s masterpiece, the cathedral known as La Sagrada Familia, at night. When shooting really iconic sites, I like to seek out unusual perspectives to avoid the dreaded “postcard shot”. Here I composed looking up from near the base of one of the towers, allowing the background to be filled by the dark night sky. This composition cleaned up most of the busy urban scene’s clutter and made for a dramatic capture of the basilica bathed in several types of light.
We had only 90 minutes to visit the interior of La Sagrada Familia before heading to Barcelona’s airport to fly home to San Francisco. I shot this self-portrait (Mary is also included) using a mirror positioned so visitors could view the soaring interior space of La Sagrada Familia.

I hope you enjoyed these favorite images from three great European cities, along with my descriptions of how the images were made. To view more images, or perhaps to purchase a few, just click on any of the photos to go to the gallery.

What are your favorite techniques or images from your urban photography? Do you have urban themes you like to document wherever you travel? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Want to read more posts about travel photography destinations? Find them all here: http://www.to-travel-hopefully.com/category/destinations/.

Focus on Asha Stanford Holi [Encore Publication] : Capturing the colors, joy, and exuberance of an iconic Indian celebration held close to home

I love all aspects of travel photography, but the moments I truly live for are when I have the opportunity to experience and to capture images of the world’s most exuberant celebrations.  The iconic Indian festival of Holi, celebrated annually throughout India in huge cities and small villages alike, is one of my absolute favorites.  This year I had the chance to shoot a large and vibrant Holi celebration without the need to fly for 30 hours to get to India.  As an official photographer for Asha Stanford’s Holi festival, I got to document all the color, joy, and revelry of a large, world-class Holi event, all within 20 minutes drive from my home.  In today’s post, I share some favorite images from the event along with some brief remarks about how each was made.  Note that all of these images and many more are available to view and purchase on my website–get there by clicking on any of the images here.

With colored powder and often sheets of water flying everywhere, Holi is by design a messy and mischievous celebration.  Protect yourself when “playing Holi” by wearing clothes you can part with after the event and by covering your camera body and lens with a rain sleeve.  Here’s the one I use, which is excellent–inexpensive, easy to use and very protective of the gear:

Note that even when using a high-quality rain cover like this one, the front end of the lens is still exposed, so be sure to protect your lens’ front element with a UV or Haze filter.  And to be extra safe, I brought only one camera body and only a single lens, which was an inexpensive but versatile “walk-around” travel zoom lens.

Crowded festivals, by their nature, have cluttered backgrounds.  When making portraits in such environments, I do try to reduce the clutter by choosing the background carefully, but capturing the moment is more important and in any case, it is futile trying to wait for completely uncluttered backgrounds.  In post-processing, some of the clutter can be minimized through careful cropping and the application of just a bit of post-crop vignetting.  Use too much vignetting, though, and the image begins to take on an artificial appearance.

To capture fast action, you obviously want to choose a fast shutter speed.  That’s no problem when shooting in bright sunshine such as we had during this Holi celebration.  Still, I choose a moderately high ISO (400) to ensure I could retain fast shutter speeds even when in the shade or when using a small aperture to maximize depth-of-field.

Get in close!  Portraits often are most effective when they emphasize a specific detail rather than show the entire environment.  To further emphasize that specific detail, try to select a wide aperture (low f-stop number) in order to obtain shallow depth-of-field.  I had only a relatively slow “walk-around” zoom lens with me, so for close-up portraits I shot wide open at f/4.5–not great for isolating the subject, but better than shooting at an even smaller aperture.  In typically less adverse environments, I would be shooting with a much faster portrait lens, most likely my favorite 85mm f/1.8 prime lens:

 

When your subject is backlit (the main light coming from behind), as is often the case when shooting outdoors in bright sunlight, be sure to choose exposure based on the main subject.  Here I used my camera’s spot metering mode to set the exposure based on the clothing of one of the people in the group, but it’s also fine to get your exposure by zooming in or walking up close to the group and then to set that exposure manually on your camera.  You can also use your camera’s exposure compensation control to dial up the automatic exposure by about 1.5 or 2 stops, but I recommend not trying to use automatic exposure modes in general.  If you use the exposure your camera’s auto mode chooses for you and your subject is strongly backlit, your image will be underexposed by typically 1.5-2 stops or even more.

I’m always on the lookout for great moments to capture.  When I saw this dad playing with his young daughter, I composed the frame around the two of them and started shooting continuously so as to get a shot at just the right instant.  During post-processing, I cropped the image to show only the portion that portrays the thrill and joy of the playful pair.

Careful composition is always important in photography, but it’s easy to forget this point during the heat of the moment when shooting in bustling and chaotic environments.  To compose this image, I framed it to get the splash of color from the two friends’ “high-five” moment right in front of the big sign boldly pronouncing, “COLOR”.  That’s a Holi moment.

One of the keys to successfully documenting huge festivals is finding the small, intimate moments.  Big, sweeping crowd shots showing chaotic motion are important to document, but it’s capturing those small interpersonal interactions that really make your portfolio shine.  I used as wide an aperture as I had available in order to cast the busy background in soft focus.

Performances are often a part of festivals, and these are wonderful fun to capture.  I’ve posted many times on the techniques required to make great images of performing arts, so I won’t repeat myself here.  Just be sure to compose appropriately, set the exposure correctly (challenging to do in direct sunlight), and shoot lots of images to be sure of capturing a few excellent ones.

The climactic moment of the Holi celebration comes near the end, when all the revelers simultaneous throw handfuls of colored powder high into the air.  Be ready for these big moments by preparing all your gear and composing all elements of the shot beforehand.  

To capture the sweeping scale of really big celebrations, sometimes it helps to make a panoramic image.  Some cameras can do this automatically in-the-camera, but I find those images don’t turn out very well, so I make panoramas manually by shooting a series of overlapping images that span the scene.  In theory this is quite simple.  Just take a series of photos starting from the far left side of the scene, then panning the camera a little bit to the right so the next photo just overlaps with the previous one, and so on until you reach the far right side of the scene.  You then use software such as Lightroom or Photoshop to stitch the separate, overlapping photos together into a single sweeping image.  In practice, this can be quite difficult.  I find the software often takes an extremely long time to process a panoramic image and sometimes even crashes while attempting to do so.  If you have a more powerful computer than I have, you may have an easier time with this process.  

Parting shot: When I see a great subject for a portrait, I will interact with him or her, get to know them a bit, then begin shooting with their permission.  Over time and in the heat of a celebration, they will forget I’m even there, but the resulting images will be better for the time spent interacting with the person first.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this photo essay and brief notes about how to shoot festivals and celebrations.  Whether we’re close to home or halfway around the world, such festive gatherings truly define the culture of the celebrants and make amazing photographic subjects.  If you’d like to read more posts about what to shoot while traveling or near home, find them all here: Posts about what to shoot.

What are your favorite celebrations to shoot, and how do you capture images there?  Please share your thoughts here!

 

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.

Panama’s “First Cry of Independence” Celebrations [Encore Publication]: Serendipitous timing allowed me to capture images of a rarely seen festival

Departing Panama City for the historic and folkloric region of the Azuero Peninsula, we were very fortunate to arrive in the little town of Chitre on the day they celebrate Panama’s “First Cry of Independence”. The push for independence from Spain began here, then spread to the rest of the country. Whether halfway around the world or right in my home town, I’m always thrilled to have the chance to capture the special energy and tradition of a festival or celebration. The excitement is even greater when the festival, like this one, is off the tourist track and seen by very few people other than locals.  In today’s post I share some favorite images from the first two days of this festival, along with some notes about how they were made. Click on any of the images to visit my Panama photo gallery, where you can browse and purchase many more images from this remarkable country.

It’s a good idea to grab some “establishing shots” when photographing any festival or other large event. These images are made from a longer distance and/or with a wider lens than the close-up images that constitute the bulk of most portfolios. The establishing shots give a sense of scale so the viewer can understand the context for the other images. Here I used a slightly wide-angle lens to frame some of the parade participants against the lovely colonial church in the town’s main square.

Because festivals are very busy events, it’s important to look for clean backgrounds insofar as possible.  To make this portrait of two young Panamanians dressed in the national costume known as the pollera, I composed so as to minimize clutter in the background and also used a wide aperture (small f-stop number) to render the background in soft focus.  Too often photographers compose based only on the main subject, but a clean background is at least as important to the success of the image than an interesting foreground subject.

Not all portraits need to include the subject’s full face. I shot this colorfully attired marcher in profile so as to give a sense of color and motion, while revealing only one side of her face.

This young participant shows off her traditional Panamanian costume called a pollera. A wide aperture sets her off from the other participants in the background, while a fast shutter speed freezes the motion of her swirling pollera.

In this image I captured the whole contingent of young women in their variously colored polleras. The lighting conditions were harsh, so I set the exposure manually be metering on the fabric of their costumes. In post-processing I had to adjust the highlights and shadows to ensure the subjects were evenly illuminated.

The second day of independence festivities are celebrated in the small town of Villa de los Santos. I asked this parade participant to pose for a portrait in a spot with a clean background and lovely soft lighting, then got in close with a fast prime portrait lens set to a wide aperture (small f-stop number) to throw the background out of focus.  Soft lighting (which can be obtained by shooting near sunrise or sunset, or by moving the subject into a shaded area) makes vivid colors truly pop and flatters the subject of your portrait.

To make this portrait of a participant wearing a fanciful mask, I asked him to pose in a somewhat less cluttered spot, then made the image using a very shallow depth-of-field to emphasize the mask and throw the background into very soft focus.

The “First Cry of Independence” festivities last well into the night.  The extremely low-light conditions offer a photographer’s dilemma: either continue to shoot using only available light (and accept the added visual noise and motion blur) or switch to using flash (and live with its short coverage distance, artificial color cast, and distraction to the subjects).  I chose to work with just available light, boosting my camera’s ISO sensitivity setting to as high as I could get away with and using a fast prime lens at a very wide aperture to gather as much light as possible, which in turn allowed the use of a reasonably fast shutter speed.  The results are lovely: sharp dancers in the foreground with just a touch of motion blur, soft focus on the dancers and buildings in the background, and a soft and painterly feel for the scene that to me feels quintessentially Panamanian.

Sometimes it can be effective to embrace rather than avoid a cluttered background and to include it as part of the overall mood of the scene. That was my approach in making this image. I got in relatively close to the dancers in the foreground, using a moderate aperture setting to render the background crowds of spectators in soft focus, but still easy to discern. This gives the viewer a sense of being a part of the bigger celebration even while observing this intimate scene featuring the young couple.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this photo essay on the first days of Panama’s independence celebrations. Have you experienced a little known local festival or celebration? Please share your experiences by leaving a comment here.

Focus on Carnival in Madeira [Encore Publication]: This tiny Portuguese island group celebrates a vibrant and unique Mardi Gras

When we think about Mardi Gras carnivals, most often the first locations that come to mind are Rio de Janeiro, New Orleans, and perhaps Trinidad.  But the start of the Lenten season is celebrated in many parts of the world with the outpouring of dance, music, color, and joy known as Carnival.  While each region’s celebrations have a few elements in common–typically the all include grand parades with samba dancers and floats, all decorated in lavish costumes–there are many notable regional differences.  For example, in my home in the San Francisco Bay Area, Carnaval SF is unique for its array of “comparsas” (samba school contingents) representing the cultural traditions of all of Latin America and the Caribbean as well as parts of Asia.

This year I had the great pleasure of capturing Mardi Gras Carnival images on assignment in Funchal, capital of the tiny island group of Madeira.  While politically a part of Portugal, Madeira is located off the coast of Morocco in North Africa and has a decidedly different cultural flair than what is found in mainland Portugal.  Samba and Carnival were essentially invented by African slaves in Brazil while it was a Portuguese colony, and the samba parade traditions have migrated back to Portugal where celebrations are held throughout the country.  Given its location between Africa and Europe, Madeira combines distinct cultural traditions from both regions and offers a special flavor of Carnival that I found exhilarating.  And best of all, the celebrations roll on over a whole week with numerous events, retaining a true local flavor with few tourists.

Today’s post features some of my favorite images from this year’s Carnival events on Madeira.  If you’d like to see more photos, or to purchase a few, please visit https://www.kadlerphotography.com/Travel-Photography/Madeira-Carnival/.  I am grateful to the Madeira Promotion Bureau for their assistance providing access to the Carnival events.  Enjoy!

I hope you enjoyed these images from this year’s Carnival events on Madeira.  Visit https://www.kadlerphotography.com/Travel-Photography/Madeira-Carnival/ to see more photos.  Again, a big thank-you to the Madeira Promotion Bureau for their assistance providing access to the Carnival events.
Have you discovered any less known locations for Carnival celebrations?  Please share your experiences and your photos here!

Focus on Carnival in Madeira [Encore Publication]: This tiny Portuguese island group celebrates a vibrant and unique Mardi Gras

When we think about Mardi Gras carnivals, most often the first locations that come to mind are Rio de Janeiro, New Orleans, and perhaps Trinidad.  But the start of the Lenten season is celebrated in many parts of the world with the outpouring of dance, music, color, and joy known as Carnival.  While each region’s celebrations have a few elements in common–typically the all include grand parades with samba dancers and floats, all decorated in lavish costumes–there are many notable regional differences.  For example, in my home in the San Francisco Bay Area, Carnaval SF is unique for its array of “comparsas” (samba school contingents) representing the cultural traditions of all of Latin America and the Caribbean as well as parts of Asia.

This year I had the great pleasure of capturing Mardi Gras Carnival images on assignment in Funchal, capital of the tiny island group of Madeira.  While politically a part of Portugal, Madeira is located off the coast of Morocco in North Africa and has a decidedly different cultural flair than what is found in mainland Portugal.  Samba and Carnival were essentially invented by African slaves in Brazil while it was a Portuguese colony, and the samba parade traditions have migrated back to Portugal where celebrations are held throughout the country.  Given its location between Africa and Europe, Madeira combines distinct cultural traditions from both regions and offers a special flavor of Carnival that I found exhilarating.  And best of all, the celebrations roll on over a whole week with numerous events, retaining a true local flavor with few tourists.

Today’s post features some of my favorite images from this year’s Carnival events on Madeira.  If you’d like to see more photos, or to purchase a few, please visit https://www.kadlerphotography.com/Travel-Photography/Madeira-Carnival/.  I am grateful to the Madeira Promotion Bureau for their assistance providing access to the Carnival events.  Enjoy!

I hope you enjoyed these images from this year’s Carnival events on Madeira.  Visit https://www.kadlerphotography.com/Travel-Photography/Madeira-Carnival/ to see more photos.  Again, a big thank-you to the Madeira Promotion Bureau for their assistance providing access to the Carnival events.
Have you discovered any less known locations for Carnival celebrations?  Please share your experiences and your photos here!

Panama’s “First Cry of Independence” Celebrations [Encore Publication]: Serendipitous timing allowed me to capture images of a rarely seen festival

Departing Panama City for the historic and folkloric region of the Azuero Peninsula, we were very fortunate to arrive in the little town of Chitre on the day they celebrate Panama’s “First Cry of Independence”. The push for independence from Spain began here, then spread to the rest of the country. Whether halfway around the world or right in my home town, I’m always thrilled to have the chance to capture the special energy and tradition of a festival or celebration. The excitement is even greater when the festival, like this one, is off the tourist track and seen by very few people other than locals.  In today’s post I share some favorite images from the first two days of this festival, along with some notes about how they were made. Click on any of the images to visit my Panama photo gallery, where you can browse and purchase many more images from this remarkable country.

It’s a good idea to grab some “establishing shots” when photographing any festival or other large event. These images are made from a longer distance and/or with a wider lens than the close-up images that constitute the bulk of most portfolios. The establishing shots give a sense of scale so the viewer can understand the context for the other images. Here I used a slightly wide-angle lens to frame some of the parade participants against the lovely colonial church in the town’s main square.

Because festivals are very busy events, it’s important to look for clean backgrounds insofar as possible.  To make this portrait of two young Panamanians dressed in the national costume known as the pollera, I composed so as to minimize clutter in the background and also used a wide aperture (small f-stop number) to render the background in soft focus.  Too often photographers compose based only on the main subject, but a clean background is at least as important to the success of the image than an interesting foreground subject.

Not all portraits need to include the subject’s full face. I shot this colorfully attired marcher in profile so as to give a sense of color and motion, while revealing only one side of her face.

This young participant shows off her traditional Panamanian costume called a pollera. A wide aperture sets her off from the other participants in the background, while a fast shutter speed freezes the motion of her swirling pollera.

In this image I captured the whole contingent of young women in their variously colored polleras. The lighting conditions were harsh, so I set the exposure manually be metering on the fabric of their costumes. In post-processing I had to adjust the highlights and shadows to ensure the subjects were evenly illuminated.

The second day of independence festivities are celebrated in the small town of Villa de los Santos. I asked this parade participant to pose for a portrait in a spot with a clean background and lovely soft lighting, then got in close with a fast prime portrait lens set to a wide aperture (small f-stop number) to throw the background out of focus.  Soft lighting (which can be obtained by shooting near sunrise or sunset, or by moving the subject into a shaded area) makes vivid colors truly pop and flatters the subject of your portrait.

To make this portrait of a participant wearing a fanciful mask, I asked him to pose in a somewhat less cluttered spot, then made the image using a very shallow depth-of-field to emphasize the mask and throw the background into very soft focus.

The “First Cry of Independence” festivities last well into the night.  The extremely low-light conditions offer a photographer’s dilemma: either continue to shoot using only available light (and accept the added visual noise and motion blur) or switch to using flash (and live with its short coverage distance, artificial color cast, and distraction to the subjects).  I chose to work with just available light, boosting my camera’s ISO sensitivity setting to as high as I could get away with and using a fast prime lens at a very wide aperture to gather as much light as possible, which in turn allowed the use of a reasonably fast shutter speed.  The results are lovely: sharp dancers in the foreground with just a touch of motion blur, soft focus on the dancers and buildings in the background, and a soft and painterly feel for the scene that to me feels quintessentially Panamanian.

Sometimes it can be effective to embrace rather than avoid a cluttered background and to include it as part of the overall mood of the scene. That was my approach in making this image. I got in relatively close to the dancers in the foreground, using a moderate aperture setting to render the background crowds of spectators in soft focus, but still easy to discern. This gives the viewer a sense of being a part of the bigger celebration even while observing this intimate scene featuring the young couple.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this photo essay on the first days of Panama’s independence celebrations. Have you experienced a little known local festival or celebration? Please share your experiences by leaving a comment here.

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.

Focus on Lisbon, Berlin, and Barcelona [Encore Publication]: History, architecture, and cultures yield boundless photographic opportunities

My wife and I recently returned from two weeks of travel in Europe to fulfill several of my photography assignments. I’ll publish separate posts in the coming weeks covering some of those professional assignments. In today’s post we’ll explore the vibrant capital cities of Lisbon, Berlin, and Barcelona. While each of these three cities has a personality very much its own, I’m hoping my images will demonstrate that photographing cities, like photographing people, is all about looking for what we have in common even as we celebrate our differences. Urban photography is special to me because cities are the places where history, architecture, and culture often align most dramatically to paint a full picture of how we live today. Note that all of these images and many more are available to view and, if desired, to purchase; just click on any image to view the gallery. Enjoy!

On arrival in Lisbon, we are treated to an early morning view of the old Moorish quarter of Alfama. I like to underexpose by 1-2 stops when shooting sunrises and sunsets to bring out more intensity in the colors. If in doubt, bracket your exposures and choose the one that best captures the scene as you experienced it, or combine the different exposures into a composite high dynamic range (HDR) image.
I loved the look and feel of the old streetcars plying the streets of Lisbon, so I found this picturesque spot and waited until the next tram came into view.
If you had told me one of the most amazing experiences in Lisbon is visiting a tile museum, I’d have answered it’s more exciting to watch the grass grow. But it turns out the National Azulejo (Tile) Museum is absolutely incredible from start to finish. This ornate chapel, decorated in azulejo tiles, is entirely contained within a part of the museum. When shooting interiors it is often advantageous to use a wide-angle lens, but it’s important to keep the camera level to the plane of the ground and avoid shooting upward or downward in order to avoid the severe proportional distortion that can occur in these situations. While it is possible to correct for this sort of distortion in post-processing software like Lightroom, it is preferable to get it right in-camera.
A nighttime street scene in Lisbon’s old Moorish neighborhood of Alfama. When handholding the camera in a low-light situation, especially when a small aperture is required for depth-of-field, it’s a good idea to boost the camera’s ISO sensitivity setting in order to achieve a relatively fast shutter speed.
We spent a full day exploring the Sintra region about an hour west of Lisbon, at the very far western edge of the European continent. Quinta da Regaleira is a wonderfully eccentric estate including a palace, a chapel, and several strange features adorned with symbols of alchemy, Masonry, the Knights Templar, and the Rosicrucians. Our favorite feature was this stone tower. I’m always on the lookout for repeating geometric patterns that often make for compelling images. It’s important to compose such shots carefully to enhance the power of the recurring pattern. I converted this image to black-and-white during postprocessing to give it a high-contrast graphic arts style look.

The Alfama neighborhood is famous as the birthplace of fado, a form of music typically performed by a solo singer accompanied by two Portuguese guitars. Fado is essentially a Portuguese version of the blues, with lyrics and melodies emphasizing the melancholy side of the culture. Most fado clubs feature extremely dim lighting to set the mood, and flash photography is strictly prohibited. This results in a technical challenge trying to capture good images. Here I used a very fast (f/1.4) prime lens almost all the way open and also boosted my camera’s ISO sensitivity setting to 6400 (as high as I like to go in order to avoid excessive digital noise), but still the required shutter speed was a rather slow 1/15 second. Instead of trying to capture the moving singer in tack-sharp fashion, I leaned into the mood of the place and allowed some motion blur to occur.
On our final day in Lisbon we explored Belem, an historic Medieval parish most well known for its medieval tower. Again, when shooting architecture with a wide-angle lens, try to shoot with the camera parallel to the ground to avoid distortion of the vertical lines. I also underexposed this image a bit to make for a more dramatic sky, recovering some of the shadow detail in post-processing.
Enjoying the Lisbon obsession, the sublime custard pastry known as Pastel de Belém, at the cafe that invented them (well, the recipe was probably borrowed from the Jerónimos Monastery next door). Food is a key part of any people’s culture, so I like to capture food scenes as part of every urban shoot. Insofar as possible, I try to arrange the various elements on the table so they tell a story in the frame of the image. Here I removed some of the items that cluttered the background, including just the pastries and the local coffee drinks. I try not to shoot straight down onto the food, as that usually results in unappealing shots. With food photography, some work is usually required in post-processing to adjust color temperatures and remove distractions like dirt and shadows.
After our stay in Lisbon, we enjoyed an unforgettable two days on assignment shooting the annual Mardi Gras Carnival festivities on the Poruguese owned island of Madeira. Those images will be featured in a separate post. Then, onward to Berlin. Our hotel was right next to the infamous Checkpoint Charlie section of the old Berlin Wall, shown here.
No visit to Berlin would be complete without passing through the stately neoclassical Brandenburg Gate. It can be very challenging to get a clean shot of very crowded iconic urban sites. Here I fitted a wide-angle lens, composed the shot looking straight toward the gate without pointing the camera up or down, and waited until nearly all of the tourists had left the frame. Some straightening of the vertical and horizontal lines still had to be done in post-processing to avoid the perspective distortion introduced by the very wide focal length.
Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial takes up a large city block and requires some time to take in and explore. To capture this large, powerful, and rather imposing monument, I composed using a moderately wide lens stopped down to a small aperture for maximum depth-of-field and keeping the horizon line with the background buildings completely straight. I converted to black-and-white in post-processing to achieve a stately, somber feel.
On our way home from Berlin, we had an overnight layover in Barcelona. With time in town for only one dinner and a bit of nighttime and morning sightseeing, we enjoyed Catalonian tapas for an authentic local dining experience. I arranged the stuffed pasta and wine glass in a pleasing pattern against the simple background of the wooden table and cropped the image to emphasize the food and wine without distractions. The color temperature usually needs to be adjusted during post-processing to give the food and beverage a realistic color.
Exploring Gaudí’s masterpiece, the cathedral known as La Sagrada Familia, at night. When shooting really iconic sites, I like to seek out unusual perspectives to avoid the dreaded “postcard shot”. Here I composed looking up from near the base of one of the towers, allowing the background to be filled by the dark night sky. This composition cleaned up most of the busy urban scene’s clutter and made for a dramatic capture of the basilica bathed in several types of light.
We had only 90 minutes to visit the interior of La Sagrada Familia before heading to Barcelona’s airport to fly home to San Francisco. I shot this self-portrait (Mary is also included) using a mirror positioned so visitors could view the soaring interior space of La Sagrada Familia.

I hope you enjoyed these favorite images from three great European cities, along with my descriptions of how the images were made. To view more images, or perhaps to purchase a few, just click on any of the photos to go to the gallery.

What are your favorite techniques or images from your urban photography? Do you have urban themes you like to document wherever you travel? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Want to read more posts about travel photography destinations? Find them all here: http://www.to-travel-hopefully.com/category/destinations/.

Focus on Carnival in Madeira [Encore Publication]: This tiny Portuguese island group celebrates a vibrant and unique Mardi Gras

When we think about Mardi Gras carnivals, most often the first locations that come to mind are Rio de Janeiro, New Orleans, and perhaps Trinidad.  But the start of the Lenten season is celebrated in many parts of the world with the outpouring of dance, music, color, and joy known as Carnival.  While each region’s celebrations have a few elements in common–typically the all include grand parades with samba dancers and floats, all decorated in lavish costumes–there are many notable regional differences.  For example, in my home in the San Francisco Bay Area, Carnaval SF is unique for its array of “comparsas” (samba school contingents) representing the cultural traditions of all of Latin America and the Caribbean as well as parts of Asia.

This year I had the great pleasure of capturing Mardi Gras Carnival images on assignment in Funchal, capital of the tiny island group of Madeira.  While politically a part of Portugal, Madeira is located off the coast of Morocco in North Africa and has a decidedly different cultural flair than what is found in mainland Portugal.  Samba and Carnival were essentially invented by African slaves in Brazil while it was a Portuguese colony, and the samba parade traditions have migrated back to Portugal where celebrations are held throughout the country.  Given its location between Africa and Europe, Madeira combines distinct cultural traditions from both regions and offers a special flavor of Carnival that I found exhilarating.  And best of all, the celebrations roll on over a whole week with numerous events, retaining a true local flavor with few tourists.

Today’s post features some of my favorite images from this year’s Carnival events on Madeira.  If you’d like to see more photos, or to purchase a few, please visit https://www.kadlerphotography.com/Travel-Photography/Madeira-Carnival/.  I am grateful to the Madeira Promotion Bureau for their assistance providing access to the Carnival events.  Enjoy!

I hope you enjoyed these images from this year’s Carnival events on Madeira.  Visit https://www.kadlerphotography.com/Travel-Photography/Madeira-Carnival/ to see more photos.  Again, a big thank-you to the Madeira Promotion Bureau for their assistance providing access to the Carnival events.
Have you discovered any less known locations for Carnival celebrations?  Please share your experiences and your photos here!

Panama’s “First Cry of Independence” Celebrations [Encore Publication]: Serendipitous timing allowed me to capture images of a rarely seen festival

Departing Panama City for the historic and folkloric region of the Azuero Peninsula, we were very fortunate to arrive in the little town of Chitre on the day they celebrate Panama’s “First Cry of Independence”. The push for independence from Spain began here, then spread to the rest of the country. Whether halfway around the world or right in my home town, I’m always thrilled to have the chance to capture the special energy and tradition of a festival or celebration. The excitement is even greater when the festival, like this one, is off the tourist track and seen by very few people other than locals.  In today’s post I share some favorite images from the first two days of this festival, along with some notes about how they were made. Click on any of the images to visit my Panama photo gallery, where you can browse and purchase many more images from this remarkable country.

It’s a good idea to grab some “establishing shots” when photographing any festival or other large event. These images are made from a longer distance and/or with a wider lens than the close-up images that constitute the bulk of most portfolios. The establishing shots give a sense of scale so the viewer can understand the context for the other images. Here I used a slightly wide-angle lens to frame some of the parade participants against the lovely colonial church in the town’s main square.

Because festivals are very busy events, it’s important to look for clean backgrounds insofar as possible.  To make this portrait of two young Panamanians dressed in the national costume known as the pollera, I composed so as to minimize clutter in the background and also used a wide aperture (small f-stop number) to render the background in soft focus.  Too often photographers compose based only on the main subject, but a clean background is at least as important to the success of the image than an interesting foreground subject.

Not all portraits need to include the subject’s full face. I shot this colorfully attired marcher in profile so as to give a sense of color and motion, while revealing only one side of her face.

This young participant shows off her traditional Panamanian costume called a pollera. A wide aperture sets her off from the other participants in the background, while a fast shutter speed freezes the motion of her swirling pollera.

In this image I captured the whole contingent of young women in their variously colored polleras. The lighting conditions were harsh, so I set the exposure manually be metering on the fabric of their costumes. In post-processing I had to adjust the highlights and shadows to ensure the subjects were evenly illuminated.

The second day of independence festivities are celebrated in the small town of Villa de los Santos. I asked this parade participant to pose for a portrait in a spot with a clean background and lovely soft lighting, then got in close with a fast prime portrait lens set to a wide aperture (small f-stop number) to throw the background out of focus.  Soft lighting (which can be obtained by shooting near sunrise or sunset, or by moving the subject into a shaded area) makes vivid colors truly pop and flatters the subject of your portrait.

To make this portrait of a participant wearing a fanciful mask, I asked him to pose in a somewhat less cluttered spot, then made the image using a very shallow depth-of-field to emphasize the mask and throw the background into very soft focus.

The “First Cry of Independence” festivities last well into the night.  The extremely low-light conditions offer a photographer’s dilemma: either continue to shoot using only available light (and accept the added visual noise and motion blur) or switch to using flash (and live with its short coverage distance, artificial color cast, and distraction to the subjects).  I chose to work with just available light, boosting my camera’s ISO sensitivity setting to as high as I could get away with and using a fast prime lens at a very wide aperture to gather as much light as possible, which in turn allowed the use of a reasonably fast shutter speed.  The results are lovely: sharp dancers in the foreground with just a touch of motion blur, soft focus on the dancers and buildings in the background, and a soft and painterly feel for the scene that to me feels quintessentially Panamanian.

Sometimes it can be effective to embrace rather than avoid a cluttered background and to include it as part of the overall mood of the scene. That was my approach in making this image. I got in relatively close to the dancers in the foreground, using a moderate aperture setting to render the background crowds of spectators in soft focus, but still easy to discern. This gives the viewer a sense of being a part of the bigger celebration even while observing this intimate scene featuring the young couple.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this photo essay on the first days of Panama’s independence celebrations. Have you experienced a little known local festival or celebration? Please share your experiences by leaving a comment here.

Focus on Lisbon, Berlin, and Barcelona [Encore Publication]: History, architecture, and cultures yield boundless photographic opportunities

My wife and I recently returned from two weeks of travel in Europe to fulfill several of my photography assignments. I’ll publish separate posts in the coming weeks covering some of those professional assignments. In today’s post we’ll explore the vibrant capital cities of Lisbon, Berlin, and Barcelona. While each of these three cities has a personality very much its own, I’m hoping my images will demonstrate that photographing cities, like photographing people, is all about looking for what we have in common even as we celebrate our differences. Urban photography is special to me because cities are the places where history, architecture, and culture often align most dramatically to paint a full picture of how we live today. Note that all of these images and many more are available to view and, if desired, to purchase; just click on any image to view the gallery. Enjoy!

On arrival in Lisbon, we are treated to an early morning view of the old Moorish quarter of Alfama. I like to underexpose by 1-2 stops when shooting sunrises and sunsets to bring out more intensity in the colors. If in doubt, bracket your exposures and choose the one that best captures the scene as you experienced it, or combine the different exposures into a composite high dynamic range (HDR) image.
I loved the look and feel of the old streetcars plying the streets of Lisbon, so I found this picturesque spot and waited until the next tram came into view.
If you had told me one of the most amazing experiences in Lisbon is visiting a tile museum, I’d have answered it’s more exciting to watch the grass grow. But it turns out the National Azulejo (Tile) Museum is absolutely incredible from start to finish. This ornate chapel, decorated in azulejo tiles, is entirely contained within a part of the museum. When shooting interiors it is often advantageous to use a wide-angle lens, but it’s important to keep the camera level to the plane of the ground and avoid shooting upward or downward in order to avoid the severe proportional distortion that can occur in these situations. While it is possible to correct for this sort of distortion in post-processing software like Lightroom, it is preferable to get it right in-camera.
A nighttime street scene in Lisbon’s old Moorish neighborhood of Alfama. When handholding the camera in a low-light situation, especially when a small aperture is required for depth-of-field, it’s a good idea to boost the camera’s ISO sensitivity setting in order to achieve a relatively fast shutter speed.
We spent a full day exploring the Sintra region about an hour west of Lisbon, at the very far western edge of the European continent. Quinta da Regaleira is a wonderfully eccentric estate including a palace, a chapel, and several strange features adorned with symbols of alchemy, Masonry, the Knights Templar, and the Rosicrucians. Our favorite feature was this stone tower. I’m always on the lookout for repeating geometric patterns that often make for compelling images. It’s important to compose such shots carefully to enhance the power of the recurring pattern. I converted this image to black-and-white during postprocessing to give it a high-contrast graphic arts style look.

The Alfama neighborhood is famous as the birthplace of fado, a form of music typically performed by a solo singer accompanied by two Portuguese guitars. Fado is essentially a Portuguese version of the blues, with lyrics and melodies emphasizing the melancholy side of the culture. Most fado clubs feature extremely dim lighting to set the mood, and flash photography is strictly prohibited. This results in a technical challenge trying to capture good images. Here I used a very fast (f/1.4) prime lens almost all the way open and also boosted my camera’s ISO sensitivity setting to 6400 (as high as I like to go in order to avoid excessive digital noise), but still the required shutter speed was a rather slow 1/15 second. Instead of trying to capture the moving singer in tack-sharp fashion, I leaned into the mood of the place and allowed some motion blur to occur.
On our final day in Lisbon we explored Belem, an historic Medieval parish most well known for its medieval tower. Again, when shooting architecture with a wide-angle lens, try to shoot with the camera parallel to the ground to avoid distortion of the vertical lines. I also underexposed this image a bit to make for a more dramatic sky, recovering some of the shadow detail in post-processing.
Enjoying the Lisbon obsession, the sublime custard pastry known as Pastel de Belém, at the cafe that invented them (well, the recipe was probably borrowed from the Jerónimos Monastery next door). Food is a key part of any people’s culture, so I like to capture food scenes as part of every urban shoot. Insofar as possible, I try to arrange the various elements on the table so they tell a story in the frame of the image. Here I removed some of the items that cluttered the background, including just the pastries and the local coffee drinks. I try not to shoot straight down onto the food, as that usually results in unappealing shots. With food photography, some work is usually required in post-processing to adjust color temperatures and remove distractions like dirt and shadows.
After our stay in Lisbon, we enjoyed an unforgettable two days on assignment shooting the annual Mardi Gras Carnival festivities on the Poruguese owned island of Madeira. Those images will be featured in a separate post. Then, onward to Berlin. Our hotel was right next to the infamous Checkpoint Charlie section of the old Berlin Wall, shown here.
No visit to Berlin would be complete without passing through the stately neoclassical Brandenburg Gate. It can be very challenging to get a clean shot of very crowded iconic urban sites. Here I fitted a wide-angle lens, composed the shot looking straight toward the gate without pointing the camera up or down, and waited until nearly all of the tourists had left the frame. Some straightening of the vertical and horizontal lines still had to be done in post-processing to avoid the perspective distortion introduced by the very wide focal length.
Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial takes up a large city block and requires some time to take in and explore. To capture this large, powerful, and rather imposing monument, I composed using a moderately wide lens stopped down to a small aperture for maximum depth-of-field and keeping the horizon line with the background buildings completely straight. I converted to black-and-white in post-processing to achieve a stately, somber feel.
On our way home from Berlin, we had an overnight layover in Barcelona. With time in town for only one dinner and a bit of nighttime and morning sightseeing, we enjoyed Catalonian tapas for an authentic local dining experience. I arranged the stuffed pasta and wine glass in a pleasing pattern against the simple background of the wooden table and cropped the image to emphasize the food and wine without distractions. The color temperature usually needs to be adjusted during post-processing to give the food and beverage a realistic color.
Exploring Gaudí’s masterpiece, the cathedral known as La Sagrada Familia, at night. When shooting really iconic sites, I like to seek out unusual perspectives to avoid the dreaded “postcard shot”. Here I composed looking up from near the base of one of the towers, allowing the background to be filled by the dark night sky. This composition cleaned up most of the busy urban scene’s clutter and made for a dramatic capture of the basilica bathed in several types of light.
We had only 90 minutes to visit the interior of La Sagrada Familia before heading to Barcelona’s airport to fly home to San Francisco. I shot this self-portrait (Mary is also included) using a mirror positioned so visitors could view the soaring interior space of La Sagrada Familia.

I hope you enjoyed these favorite images from three great European cities, along with my descriptions of how the images were made. To view more images, or perhaps to purchase a few, just click on any of the photos to go to the gallery.

What are your favorite techniques or images from your urban photography? Do you have urban themes you like to document wherever you travel? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Want to read more posts about travel photography destinations? Find them all here: http://www.to-travel-hopefully.com/category/destinations/.

Panama’s “First Cry of Independence” Celebrations [Encore Publication]: Serendipitous timing allowed me to capture images of a rarely seen festival

Departing Panama City for the historic and folkloric region of the Azuero Peninsula, we were very fortunate to arrive in the little town of Chitre on the day they celebrate Panama’s “First Cry of Independence”. The push for independence from Spain began here, then spread to the rest of the country. Whether halfway around the world or right in my home town, I’m always thrilled to have the chance to capture the special energy and tradition of a festival or celebration. The excitement is even greater when the festival, like this one, is off the tourist track and seen by very few people other than locals.  In today’s post I share some favorite images from the first two days of this festival, along with some notes about how they were made. Click on any of the images to visit my Panama photo gallery, where you can browse and purchase many more images from this remarkable country.

It’s a good idea to grab some “establishing shots” when photographing any festival or other large event. These images are made from a longer distance and/or with a wider lens than the close-up images that constitute the bulk of most portfolios. The establishing shots give a sense of scale so the viewer can understand the context for the other images. Here I used a slightly wide-angle lens to frame some of the parade participants against the lovely colonial church in the town’s main square.

Because festivals are very busy events, it’s important to look for clean backgrounds insofar as possible.  To make this portrait of two young Panamanians dressed in the national costume known as the pollera, I composed so as to minimize clutter in the background and also used a wide aperture (small f-stop number) to render the background in soft focus.  Too often photographers compose based only on the main subject, but a clean background is at least as important to the success of the image than an interesting foreground subject.

Not all portraits need to include the subject’s full face. I shot this colorfully attired marcher in profile so as to give a sense of color and motion, while revealing only one side of her face.

This young participant shows off her traditional Panamanian costume called a pollera. A wide aperture sets her off from the other participants in the background, while a fast shutter speed freezes the motion of her swirling pollera.

In this image I captured the whole contingent of young women in their variously colored polleras. The lighting conditions were harsh, so I set the exposure manually be metering on the fabric of their costumes. In post-processing I had to adjust the highlights and shadows to ensure the subjects were evenly illuminated.

The second day of independence festivities are celebrated in the small town of Villa de los Santos. I asked this parade participant to pose for a portrait in a spot with a clean background and lovely soft lighting, then got in close with a fast prime portrait lens set to a wide aperture (small f-stop number) to throw the background out of focus.  Soft lighting (which can be obtained by shooting near sunrise or sunset, or by moving the subject into a shaded area) makes vivid colors truly pop and flatters the subject of your portrait.

To make this portrait of a participant wearing a fanciful mask, I asked him to pose in a somewhat less cluttered spot, then made the image using a very shallow depth-of-field to emphasize the mask and throw the background into very soft focus.

The “First Cry of Independence” festivities last well into the night.  The extremely low-light conditions offer a photographer’s dilemma: either continue to shoot using only available light (and accept the added visual noise and motion blur) or switch to using flash (and live with its short coverage distance, artificial color cast, and distraction to the subjects).  I chose to work with just available light, boosting my camera’s ISO sensitivity setting to as high as I could get away with and using a fast prime lens at a very wide aperture to gather as much light as possible, which in turn allowed the use of a reasonably fast shutter speed.  The results are lovely: sharp dancers in the foreground with just a touch of motion blur, soft focus on the dancers and buildings in the background, and a soft and painterly feel for the scene that to me feels quintessentially Panamanian.

Sometimes it can be effective to embrace rather than avoid a cluttered background and to include it as part of the overall mood of the scene. That was my approach in making this image. I got in relatively close to the dancers in the foreground, using a moderate aperture setting to render the background crowds of spectators in soft focus, but still easy to discern. This gives the viewer a sense of being a part of the bigger celebration even while observing this intimate scene featuring the young couple.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this photo essay on the first days of Panama’s independence celebrations. Have you experienced a little known local festival or celebration? Please share your experiences by leaving a comment here.