photography – Page 2 – To Travel Hopefully

Focus on Total Solar Eclipse in Chile: A photo essay of images from Chile and Easter Island

Having just returned from leading a 2.5-week photography tour through Chile and Easter Island and including the July 2 total solar eclipse, I’d like to share a few favorite images. You can find the full photo gallery here: https://www.kadlerphotography.com/Travel-Photography/Chile-Eclipse.

Santiago Cathedral’s tower reflected in the windows of a modern glass office building.

We were fortunate to visit Valparaiso on the day of the Festival of St. Peter and St. Paul.

The diamond ring effect signals the start of the 2.5-minute period of totality.

A timelapse montage showing the path of the sun across the sky during the entire solar eclipse and through to sunset.

Glorious landscape around the Miscanti Lagoon.

Three species of native pink flamingo live in the Atacama Salt Flat.

Pattern and texture on the Atacama Salt Flat.

We were so fortunate to travel during a new moon in winter to the Atacama Desert. There’s no better combination of time and place for viewing (and photographing) the Milky Way.

We enjoyed a breathtaking sunset at Kari Viewpoint in the Atacama Desert.

Group portrait of the entire Photography Tour team in front of the seven Mo’ai of Ahu Akivi on Easter Island.

Gorgeous sunset over the ocean behind mo’ai.

Ahu Tongariki is the largest ceremonial platform on Easter Island, once holding 16 mo’ai. After the mo’ai were toppled during a period of civil unrest and then, more recently, devastated by a tsunami, 15 of them were reconstructed with help from Japan.

Traditional Rapa Nui face painting on Anakena Beach.

Vai Te Mihi performed a show of traditional Rapa Nui dance and music.

Worth the 3 AM wakeup call! A once in a lifetime opportunity to photograph the Milky Way above mo’ai on Easter Island. We had a bit of cloud cover, but overall I was very pleased with the resulting images.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this sampling of images from this amazing adventure. Please check out the full gallery here: https://www.kadlerphotography.com/Travel-Photography/Chile-Eclipse. And please join me for upcoming photography tours and workshops around the world: https://www.meetup.com/TravelPhotographyWorkshops/.

Filtered Down to the Essentials [Encore Publication]: Why you should always have these filters in your bag

Filters are the Rodney Dangerfield of photographic gear: They don’t get enough respect. Most photographers will begin to salivate when talking about the latest camera bodies or lenses and even plates or heads for our tripods, but we tend to think of filters as pedestrian items, if we think about them at all. I nearly always make room in my bag for several filters, and I believe that using them properly is more important than what camera or even which lens I choose. Let’s look into why these affordable little accessories are so important.

Three kinds of filters are essential gear for most photographers. I’ll cover each type here. Note that you must use a filter that is the correct size to attach to your lens.

It’s a good idea to keep a UV filter (also known as a haze filter) attached to your lenses at all times, as this helps protect the front element of the lens from fingerprints, moisture, and even scratches. In addition to offering some physical protection for your lens, a good UV filter can also improve image quality when there is atmospheric haze or moisture in the air. Use a good quality filter, though, as some can adversely affect your image quality. I would recommend removing the UV filter when shooting with certain other combinations of filters, as the edges of the image can be cut off (vignetting) with too thick a stack of filters on the end of the lens. In most cases, use of a UV filter does not affect the exposure more than about half a stop, so they can be used in most lighting conditions. I’ve had good luck with Hoya UV filters. Always be sure to look at the specifications for your lens before buying any screw-on filter, because the diameter of the filter thread must match the size of the lens.

The second must-have type of filter is the circular polarizer. A polarizing filter can reduce glaring reflections and can darken skies and enhance natural colors. This little gadget is almost a secret weapon for making images that really pop. Again, I like the Hoya products, which are thin, well made, and perform as they should.

It takes a bit of practice to learn to use a polarizing filter properly. While looking through your camera’s viewfinder or LCD screen, turn the outer part of the filter slowly to see the effect. The greater the angle between the light source (typically the sun) and the shooting direction, the bigger the effect of turning the outer ring of the filter. You will observe as you rotate the outer ring of the filter that the sky, clouds, and any bodies of water will transform quite dramatically. When you see the effect you like best, overshoot a little bit and then rotate the outer ring back to where you want it. In most cases, I recommend not using the maximum amount of polarizing effect when there are reflections from water or glass, because you usually want some of these reflections to be visible in your final image, but this is art, not science, so you get to choose the effect you want. Note that using a polarizing filter will cost you about 2-3 stops of exposure. You will have to use a slower shutter speed and/or faster ISO or wider aperture, so use a steady tripod if the lighting conditions are dim.

Here’s an example of a shooting situation in which a polarizing filter can really make an image pop. For this shot of the imposing peaks in Southern Patagonia’s Torres del Paine National Park, I rotated the polarizer to about 2/3 of its maximum effect to darken the sky, make the clouds more dramatic, and bring out the bright sheer faces of the granite peaks.

A circular polarizing filter makes a big difference when shooting mountains, skies, and/or bodies of water. Buy this photo

The final essential filter is the neutral density (ND) filter. These reduce the amount of light that reaches the camera’s sensor, so you can use slower shutter speeds to blur motion, or so you can use a wider aperture to get a shallow depth-of-field, even in bright sunlight. ND filters come in different strengths as designated by the number in the filter’s specifications. For example, an ND2 filter blocks 1/2 the light for a one-stop reduction in exposure, while an ND8 filter blocks 7/8 of the light for a three-stop reduction in exposure. It’s a good idea to carry a range of ND filters for each lens you plan to use in the field. A newer type of ND filter even allows for variable adjustment of the strength of the ND effect with just one filter, but these tend to be expensive.

A classic example of a situation in which you’d want to use an ND filter is when shooting moving water in bright lighting conditions. You may want to use a longer shutter speed to blur the water, but even at your camera’s lowest ISO setting and your lens’ smallest aperture there could still be too much light for a slow shutter speed. Mounting an ND8 filter to your lens will allow you to use a shutter speed eight times longer than without the filter, so for example you could move from shooting at 1/30 of a second to 1/4 of a second.

Here’s a photo of my younger daughter by a waterfall in Yosemite National Park. The image was made in the early afternoon under very bright sunlight, bright enough that even using my camera’s slowest native ISO sensitivity and my lens’s most narrow aperture, I would still have had to use a shutter speed of 1/60 of a second, which would have frozen the water in the falls. Using an ND8 filter, however, I was able to slow down the shutter speed to 1/8 of a second, long enough to impart a nice blur to the falling water.

Use of a neutral density filter allowed me to blur the falling water even under very bright lighting conditions. Buy this photo

I recommend carrying a kit containing several ND filters of different strengths for each lens you plan to use for landscape images. Once again, make sure the diameter of the filter matches the diameter of the lens you intend to fit it to.

Note that there’s another type of ND filter called the “graduated ND filter,” and this filter varies the light-blocking effect from one end of the filter to the other end. I used to use this type of filter quite often, but in this digital era I find it usually works just as well to simulate the effect of a graduated ND filter using post-processing software later.

Armed with these three types of filters, you will be prepared to create the images you have in your mind, even under challenging shooting conditions. Happily, filters are small, light, and not terribly expensive, making them one of the better values we photographers can find.

Which filters do you always carry, and when have you found them most useful? Any tips or tricks on how to use filters for the best results? Please leave a comment in the box after this post to share your thoughts.

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

Followup–To JPEG or Not to JPEG [Encore Publication]: For many RAW shooters there is no need to use RAW+JPG

A couple of years ago, I published the following post in which I explained why I was transitioning away from shooting RAW+JPEG to shooting only in RAW format. Just a quick follow-up to share that since then, I have executed several hundred photo shoots in RAW mode only, and I also have gone back to nearly all my archives of older shoots and deleted all the JPEG files where the same image was also stored in RAW format. What are the results so far? I’ve recovered about 20% of my hard disk drive’s space, so everything now runs faster on my PC and I’m not always struggling to free up enough space for each day’s new shots. Furthermore, my shoots are going more smoothly because I don’t need to wait for the camera’s buffer to clear as it attempts to write both RAW and JPEG versions of each image to the memory card, and because I don’t need to change memory cards nearly as often. And I’m happy to report that thus far I have had absolutely no issues as a result of making this major change to my workflow. If you’re still shooting RAW+JPEG, now may be a good time to examine whether the extra burden is worthwhile in your own workflow. The original article from two weeks ago follows.

=======ORIGINAL POST FROM FEB. 4, 2017=======

Regular readers of To Travel Hopefully already know that I always shoot in RAW mode, and most likely you do, too. I’ve written repeatedly about the major advantages of RAW vs. JPEG format. For a refresher, here’s a good summary post on the topic: Post on RAW Mode. I concluded this previous post with a recommendation to shoot in RAW+JPEG mode, where the camera writes out the image data in both its native RAW format and in the familiar but problematic JPEG mode. Here’s the relevant paragraph from that older post:

I recommend shooting in RAW+JPEG all the time, unless you know you will need the slightly faster shooting speed or extra storage space of JPEG alone. Doing so will give you the best of both worlds: a quick and easy JPEG to share right out of the camera, and the much more detailed data in the RAW file from which to bring out the nuances in color, texture, and exposure later during post-processing. If you use JPEG alone, you’ll be throwing away image information you may wish you had later.

But right now, I’m in the middle of making a major transition in my workflow. I’ve stopped shooting in RAW+JPEG mode and am now storing my images only as RAW files. Moreover, I’m cleaning up my PC’s hard drive by revisiting many of my directories from shoots over the past few years and deleting all of the original JPEG files (obviously, I am keeping the JPEGs that I exported from Lightroom after post-processing the original RAW files).

Why would I do such a thing, you may ask? There are several major reasons:

I don’t end up using the JPEG files: Shooting in RAW+JPEG had become a crutch for me. I had been using this mode because I was afraid of not having JPEG versions of all my images, in case I decided post-processing the RAW files was too much work or if I wanted to share certain images right out of the camera. But I’ve been realizing that I never share JPEGs right after shooting. They just don’t look good enough for most professional work, so I need to post-process the good ones before delivering them to anyone. You may have clients who need to see some rough JPEGs immediately after the shoot. I know some wedding photographers who promise this immediate preview to their clients. But I don’t have this requirement, so the JPEGs were just sitting on my hard drive, unused, forever. And it’s so easy to export quick-and-dirty JPEG files from Lightroom shortly after the shoot.
Duplicate JPEG files slow down shooting: The RAW+JPEG mode tells the camera to write out two different formats for every image you shoot. This slows down your shooting by bogging down the camera’s processor, and it also fills up the camera’s buffer more quickly, requiring a disruptively long wait to resume shooting. It also fills up memory cards more quickly. While JPEG sizes vary from image to image due to compression algorithms, I find they average about 1/3 to 1/2 the size of my camera’s RAW files. That’s a lot of extra space on the memory card, so I have to stop shooting to change cards more often.
Duplicate JPEG files take up a lot of disk space: Even though my main laptop PC has a 1.5 TB hard disk drive, I find it is always filling up, which considerably slows down workflow and requires bothersome housekeeping to clean up. Storing unneeded JPEG versions of my many tens of thousands of images wastes a lot of disk space.
Those JPEGs slow down workflow: Even though Lightroom has a useful option to import only the RAW version into your catalog, and it keeps track of the duplicate JPEG version of the same image, having both files on your hard drive still slows down post-processing and image maintenance tasks.

I know that some photographers really do need to have JPEG files of their images. They may be delivering images right out of the camera via a wireless connection to a cloud server that supports only JPEG format. They may not get to post-processing for some time after the shoot and want to remember what the image looked like with the camera’s settings applied (although here one should note that Lightroom and other RAW viewers will access your camera’s settings via the thumbnail image embedded within your image’s RAW file). They may really love their camera’s black-and-white conversion tool or other in-camera editing tools, which work only with the JPEG format. There are quite a few situations in which you may truly require a JPEG version of your images. But I haven’t encountered these situations in my own recent work and don’t expect to in the foreseeable future.

So, that’s the backstory on why I’m moving from shooting RAW+JPEG to RAW only. I’m even taking the drastic step of going back to recent shoot directories on my PC and deleting the original JPEG versions of the images. I’ll report back in a few weeks to provide an update on how this works out for me. In the meantime, if you’re shooting in RAW+JPEG mode, you may also want to think about whether doing so genuinely helps your workflow or simply is wasting your resources.

Do you shoot RAW+JPEG, RAW only, or some different format? Why? Please share your experiences here.

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

Purple Mountain’s Majesty [Encore Publication]: Including mountains in your images

Whether we’re traveling halfway around the world or just a few miles from home, we travel photographers get excited about including mountains in our images. Mountainous landscapes can provide so many of the most basic elements we look for in a great photograph: beautiful light, compelling composition, exquisite textures, and an authentic sense of place. In this post we will cover some of the fundamental techniques for capturing great images of mountains.

As with most kinds of photography, it all begins with beautiful light. Whenever possible, try to shoot mountain landscapes near sunrise or sunset, or when something interesting is happening with the weather conditions. The quality of light tends to be best during these times. You’re more likely to capture lovely colors on the peaks and in the sky, and the image is more apt to give a sense of depth and drama than during the middle hours of the day.

Shooting from the deck at our lodge in Torres del Paine National Park in Chile, I had to miss most of an excellent dinner to capture Lago Grey with its mountains and glaciers during the “golden hour” just before sunset. The lovely interplay of colors and textures, from the sky to the peaks and to the icebergs and water, made the resulting image worth the effort. Buy this photo

When shooting mountain landscapes, it is usually a good idea to bracket your exposure. With the camera fixed on a sturdy tripod, compose your scene and then shoot a series of images, each with a slightly different exposure. Many cameras have settings to automate the process of bracketing. The two main benefits of exposure bracketing are raising the odds you’ll have a perfectly exposed image and allowing you to create a high dynamic range (HDR) image from several different exposures. See this post for a refresher on how to use exposure bracketing: Post on Exposure Bracketing.

This HDR image of Yosemite National Park’s peaks reflected in the Merced River was created from a series of different exposures made using bracketing. The camera was mounted on a tripod and I made a series of seven shots, each one exposed 2/3 of a stop brighter than the previous one. Buy this photo

I’m often asked how to make mountain images that really “pop”. Why are some photographs of mountain landscapes so dynamic and compelling, with intriguing contrast between the peaks and the sky? Of course, there are many elements that go into the making of an excellent image, but there is a “secret sauce” that can dramatically improve many mountain images: the polarizing filter. Properly using a circular polarizing filter on your lens can emphasize the contrasting parts of the rock, snow, and/or ice on the mountains and can also add drama to the clouds and sky. Every image shown in this post was made with a polarizer. Be sure to adjust the filter by turning its outer ring until you see the effect you want to achieve. Usually this involves rotating the filter’s ring until you see the maximum polarizing effect possible and then dialing it back a little (or a lot) until you achieve a balance between added drama and a natural look. Experience helps here. Check out this post on the use of filters, including polarizers: Post on Filters.

This image of a rare lenticular cloud forming on the summit of Osorno Volcano in Argentinian Patagonia was made using a polarizing filter to bring out the cloud formation and darken the sky. Buy this photo

Mountain colors can be glorious, but also consider converting some mountain images to black-and-white during post-processing. Rendering in black-and-white can emphasize the textures on the crags and peaks of a mountain and can also lend drama to the foreground and sky. Shots captured with a polarizing filter will usually result in more intriguing monochrome images. When converting to black-and-white during post-processing, be sure to play around with the contrast and individual color channel sliders until you achieve the result you want. For more info on black-and-white photography, check out this post: Post on Black and White Photography.

This shot of a rock dome in Yosemite’s Tuolumne Meadows area is striking when rendered in black-and-white. Buy this photo

Sometimes when we’re traveling we don’t have the option of returning to a gorgeous mountain location when the lighting is perfect. Don’t let the flat lighting of a bright mid-day sun stop you from shooting the local peaks. Great images can be made at any time of day. Just make sure to follow the main techniques outlined in this post: compose well, use a polarizing filter, and bracket your exposure.

Patagonian peaks captured on our way out of Torres del Paine National Park. Because we didn’t have the option of returning at the golden hour, I made this image in the harsh mid-day sun. With careful attention to composition and the use of a polarizing filter and exposure bracketing, I was able to make a favorite image in spite of the less than perfect lighting conditions. Buy this photo

What are your go-to methods when shooting mountain scenery? What are your favorite mountain locations? Please share your thoughts in the comment box here.

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

Focus on Morocco [Encore Publication]: A visual feast for all the senses

Iconic Moroccan scene: No visit to the Sahara Desert would be complete without experiencing a dromedary ride across the sand dunes. Ever try to photograph while clinging on for dear life atop the lurching single hump of a dromedary? I have. The best advice for shooting in situations like this one is to preset your camera to a very fast shutter speed in order to freeze the motion, use your camera’s or lens’s stabilization feature, and capture a few bursts of many shots in quick succession. You’re unlikely to get any award-winning photos while traveling on camelback, but using these tips you can at least capture some of the adventure of the experience.

My wife and I recently returned from a lovely adventure traveling through Morocco. OAT’s Morocco Sahara Odyssey itinerary took us from the administrative capital of Rabat to the ancient cultural capital of Fez, to the thrilling and otherworldly Sahara Desert including a stay in a luxurious private tented camp nestled among the sand dunes, into the High Atlas Mountains, then on to the quintessential overload experience for all the senses that is Marrakesh, and finally to fabled Casablanca. Throughout this adventure we had the opportunity to meet and learn from local Moroccan people of diverse backgrounds and trades. Morocco is a special destination for photographers of all levels: whether you’re shooting with 40 pounds of professional gear (and the backache to prove it) or just using your phone’s camera, this is an adventure that will engage your creativity to capture sweeping desert landscapes, street scenes among the vibrant and bustling souks, ancient cityscapes, lovely portraits, and exotic wildlife.

Our Moroccan adventure began in the capital city, Rabat. Rabat boasts a twelfth-century mosque and minaret that would have been the world’s largest had they been completed.

When strolling through any city I’m always on the lookout for interesting patterns of color and texture. This bustling urban scene impressed me with its repeating pattern of blue taxicabs framed by manicured palm trees and whitewashed buildings.

From Rabat we traveled to ancient Fez, with its rich Moroccan cultural legacy.

At a souk (marketplace) in the old part of Fez, a vendor prepares thin layers of dough for cooking. Many photographers expect Morocco to be a challenging destination for portraiture because some of its people hold to traditional beliefs and would prefer not to be photographed. We found this to be only partly true. As in any other country, in Morocco one should always ask permission before shooting closeup photos including any person. But in today’s Morocco, particularly in urban settings, people have smartphones and are quite accustomed to being photographed. Your trip experience leader can act as a local “fixer,” helping introduce us to the people we meet and translating for us to help pave the way for photography. But with or without a local guide, the traveler who makes an effort to get to know their subject first is likely to be rewarded with a richer understanding of the local culture and some lovely portraits by which to remember its people.

Traditional leather dyeing process at a tannery in Fez. The tannery staff take pride in continuing to employ natural methods as opposed to the chemical processes used by most modern tanneries. As we looked down on the dyeing vats from the roof of the tannery’s adjacent four-story shop building, I was struck by the stunning array of vibrant colors. I used a moderate telephoto lens to compose the image and underexposed the shot by one stop to concentrate the saturation of the colors.

Our intrepid group poses wearing traditional Moroccan turbans at the caravansary, an ancient rest stop along the trade route where camels were fed and sheltered on the ground floor while their people were taken care of on the upper floors. It’s always fun to capture some shots of the entire group while traveling. Here, I used a wide-angle lens to include everyone along with the surroundings, a technique referred to as an environmental portrait. The trick when photographing people through a wide-angle lens is to keep the lens exactly level to the ground rather than pointing it up or down, which causes unflattering distortion.

After spending several days in Fez, we traveled through the Middle Atlas Mountains into the Sahara Desert. The stark, otherworldly features of the desert were a highlight of the trip. Far from being a desolate and lifeless place, the Sahara is teeming with flora and fauna and home to some of the friendliest people we’ve met.

Traveling through the Middle Atlas Mountains between Fez and Erfoud, we stopped to view Barbary apes in their habitat in a cedar forest within a national park. Tips for better wildlife photography include using a long telephoto lens to allow shooting from a safe distance so as not to endanger you or your subject, selecting a high ISO setting and a fast shutter speed, and grabbing a burst of many shots so as to increase the chances of walking away with at least one really good one.

Meet Moha, whose father many years ago found ground water just below a seemingly lifeless patch of land in the Sahara Desert and decided to plant there. Moha, shown here with his granddaughter, took over the farm from his father and now tends to more than 150 date trees. He showed us his entire impressive operation. When making portraits of two people, it’s best to wait for them to relax and then to catch the moments when they are interacting with each other and not the camera. I used a wide aperture setting (small f-stop number) to soften the background, which helps emphasize the people in the foreground.

Hiking to the top of a massive sand dune near our tented camp to enjoy happy hour, I captured this landscape photo of a Saharan sunset. Not all landscapes need to be photographed using a wide-angle lens. In this case I wanted to compress the apparent distance between the far-off layers of dunes, so I used a moderate telephoto lens. Underexposing by one stop helped concentrate the colors in this scene.

Sand surfing down from our perch on the dunes. Because this photo was shot in almost total darkness well after sunset, I had to boost my camera’s ISO sensitivity setting. This allowed the use of a small enough aperture (high f-stop number) to keep the whole scene in sharp focus and a fast enough shutter speed to freeze the action.

Spectacular night sky in the middle of the Sahara Desert featuring a brilliant Milky Way and a meteorite above rolling sand dunes. Because our private tented camp was situated in a remote spot among the dunes, I had only to walk a few steps from our tent to find a dark-sky location for night photography. Today’s cameras are much better at capturing nighttime scenes, but there are still some complexities in getting your shot: use a sturdy tripod and a remote shutter release to keep your camera stationary, employ a wide-angle lens to include more of the sky, focus manually so that the stars appear sharp, and select a fast ISO setting and wide aperture (small f-stop number) to allow a shutter speed of no longer than twenty seconds. A longer exposure risks that the stars will move during your shot.

This region of the Sahara is known for its Gnawa musicians. Originally from Sub-Saharan Africa, their ancestors escaped slavery and migrated north, bringing ancient folk traditions with them. Today pre-Islamic and more modern musical forms are integrated into their performances. The famous photojournalist Robert Capa once said, “If your photos aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.” This is not universally true but it’s certainly a helpful reminder when shooting portraits that we shouldn’t be afraid to get really close to our subjects—assuming we have their permission and we’re not disrupting their activities. I used my go-to portrait lens, a moderate (85mm) telephoto prime (non-zoom) lens with a very wide aperture (very low f-stop number) to be able to get this closeup without disturbing the performance. The wide aperture allows a faster shutter speed to freeze the motion and also softens the background so that the drummer’s features are emphasized.

We had a chance meeting with Aicha as she carried a tree she planned to use for firewood through the alleys of the village of Tinjdad. Our wonderful trip experience leader Mohammed broke the ice by asking Aicha some questions about her life and her activities that day. She had quite a few questions for us, too, and found the interaction to be very amusing. With her permission I made this delightful portrait that expresses her wisdom and curiosity about the people she has just met.

En route from the Sahara to the ancient and chaotic city of Marrakesh, we visited several villages and met some of their people.

An eleventh-century village and fortress that is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. For village scenes, I find it’s helpful to look for a while without the camera and wait for an interesting visual story to come to mind. Only then do I choose the right focal length lens to tell the story. There are many ways to photograph an historical place, so be sure to find a story that has meaning to you.

In the village of Asfalu, Ahmed and his wife Leila welcomed us into their home. I love this portrait of one of their daughters, 13-year-old Nouhayla. After getting to know each other, she agreed to pose for the photo and I suggested we move into the courtyard outside their home where there was an uncluttered background. The background is at least as important as the foreground subject when composing a photo, so don’t be shy about moving your subject.

Marrakesh is a place unlike any other. Its ancient souks inhabit the narrow alleys of the medina (old city). Jemaa el-Fnaa Square, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the heart of town, bustles day and night with thousands of visitors from near and far.

We enjoyed coffee at a café atop a nearby building and were afforded a panoramic view at sunset over Jemaa el-Fnaa Square. Any camera yields great results when photographing a scene this vibrant and lively. Just choose a composition that speaks to you and fire away. I do recommend checking that the horizon line is level while composing your shot, as it’s easy to get carried away with the excitement of the scene and to shoot with an uneven horizon.

One of countless thousands of vendor stalls along the labyrinthine alleys of Marrakesh’s medina. I was intrigued by the array of identically shaped jars, each with its own vibrantly colored contents. To ensure the lines of the shelves were not distorted, I used a medium telephoto lens and shot from slightly further back. Wide-angle lenses have the effect of distorting parallel lines unless great care is taken when composing the photo.

A few travelers from our group used our free time to hike among the hill towns of the Imlil Valley in the High Atlas Mountains. We were afforded glorious views of nearby villages as we trekked along the narrow trails. This scene of a village at the base of the mountain appeared around a bend in the trail.

A beautiful tagine (Moroccan stew) served at lunch during our hike. We were amazed by the flavor and appearance of this dish, especially given our location at a tiny rooftop café in a remote mountain village. Capturing photos of food is rarely easy and certainly was a challenge in dazzlingly bright sunlight. I moved the tagine under a canopy, positioned a black placemat behind it, and shot from an oblique angle to bring out the contrasting colors and textures in the dish. During post-processing, I cropped a bit more tightly and darkened the background to make it completely black.

Leaving Marrakesh behind, we traveled to Casablanca, our final stop before returning home.

The Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca is the world’s third-largest mosque, accommodating 105,000 worshipers. Only the mosques in Mecca and Medina are bigger. Photographing very large and tall buildings poses a challenge. To include the whole structure a very wide-angle lens is required, but if the camera is tilted up or down even a little bit, the lines of the building are distorted. Here I used an ultrawide lens but ensured the camera was kept exactly level to the ground to minimize distortion.

You can see more of my images from our Morocco adventure here: https://www.kadlerphotography.com/Travel-Photography/Morocco.

Have you traveled and photographed in Morocco? Please share your experiences, and images, by commenting on this post!

Focus on Yellowstone and Grand Teton [Enore Publication]: The oldest national park in the US remains one of the best photographic destinations

My last visit to Yellowstone National Park and its nearby cousin Grand Teton National Park was in June of 2011, and I am long overdue for a return trip. These two gems of the US National Park system are among the world’s best photographic destinations. Featuring an amazing array of mountain scenery, geothermal activity, wildlife, and human cultural records, Yellowstone and Grand Teton are, simply put, indispensable destinations for travel photographers. In today’s post, let’s look at a few of my favorite images from the 2011 trip and discuss how they were made. While the parks haven’t changed too much over the past six years, the state of the art of photographic gear certainly has changed a great deal. Today’s cameras and lenses will afford photographers even more options for capturing the remarkable beauty of these parks.

Yellowstone N.P. has more geothermal activity than any other region of the world, and this activity manifests itself in many fascinating ways. The Mammoth Terraces area of the park is known for its gloriously delicate and colorful silica terraces, including the one in this image. For a great landscape image, it’s best to combine the main subject (here, the silica terraces) with striking foreground and/or background elements (here, the Teton Mountain Range, behind). I used a circular polarizing filter to bring out the drama in the sky and the highlights in the mountain range, but I dialed back the polarizing effect a bit so as not to eliminate the gorgeous reflections in the pools. Buy this photo

Yellowstone and Grand Teton N.P.’s are filled with fascinating wildlife, including American bison, elk, wolf, coyote, marmot, osprey, and many other mammal and bird species. Here I’ve captured (in images, of course) an intrepid coyote that cut across our hiking trail. For striking wildlife portraits, it’s best to use a medium to long telephoto lens so as not to have to get so close as to stress the animal (or risk your own safety). Tack-sharp focus is important, and I always strive to frame the subject with as uncluttered a background as possible. Buy this photo

Photographs that tell stories are perennial favorites. I love the humor apparent in this image, which tells the story of a standoff between a large male bison and two park rangers attempting to shepherd a convoy of park visitors across the field to an interpretive nature program and barbecue dinner. At the time this photo was made, the bison was winning. Buy this photo

Just as in a portrait of a person, a wildlife portrait should capture the spirit of the subject. This large marmot was sitting up as if to get a better look at us. His expression is both comical and wise. To maximize the chances of capturing just the right expression and position, frame the subject first, set the proper focus and exposure, and then shoot continuously for several seconds. Buy this photo

The quaint Chapel of the Transfiguration, located amidst some of the world’s most lovely mountain scenery in Grand Teton N.P., is a wonderful photographic subject. Here I framed the Tetons in the chapel’s window and fired an off-camera speedlight to illuminate the walls and altar of the church. Buy this photo

The iconic Moulton Barn sits on a field in Grand Teton N.P. with the glory of the Teton Mountain Range arrayed behind it. This landscape image was made with great care to ensure a pleasing composition including barn, mountains, and cloudy sky, as well as to expose for the wooden texture of the barn. A small aperture (high F-stop number) was used to keep the entire scene in focus. I used a polarizing filter to bring out the drama in the sky and mountains, as well as to concentrate the lovely green and blue colors. The scene was further enhanced to achieve a pleasing balance through tone and saturation adjustments in post-processing. Buy this photo

I was drawn to the texture and patterns of the cracked muddy ground in a geothermal area of Yellowstone N.P. Composing the image to include just enough of the pattern as well as leading lines to draw the eye downrange, I converted it to black-and-white and made adjustments to contrast and tonal range in post-processing. Buy this photo

Yellowstone’s Grand Prismatic Spring is a breathtaking feature that is almost impossible not to photograph well. That said, there are techniques to capture it in all its glory. Grand Prismatic Spring is one of the world’s few iconic subjects that is best photographed in the harsh light of mid-day, when the reflection from the direct sun most vibrantly brings out the array of colors. Unless you can shoot it from above, looking directly down on the spring, it is best to include some foreground and background elements other than the spring itself, to provide context. Here, I framed the spring through some lodgepole pine trees and included some forests and mountains in the background. Buy this photo

Every visitor to Yellowstone N.P. will stop to observe some geyser eruptions. But instead of just shooting straight on during mid-day into the eruption of a famous geyser like Old Faithful, seek out some of the lesser-known geysers at sunrise and sunset, and compose to include compositional elements other than the eruption itself. This image, a favorite of mine, was made on a geyser basin at sunset. I set up the camera on a steady tripod, set the exposure for a wide depth-of-field, and composed the scene to include the cracked earth and and the reflection of the sunset and eruption within the pools of sulfurous water. Buy this photo

I can hardly wait to return to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks! I’m even more eager to visit during the winter than during the much more crowded summer months. The rich array of scenery, wildlife, and otherworldly geothermal features elevate these parks to the pinnacle of travel photography destinations.

Have you visited Yellowstone and Grand Teton? What did you find most remarkable? What do you recommend your fellow travel photographers shoot while there, and what techniques do you use? Please share your comments here.

Want to read other posts about travel photography destinations around the world? Find them all here: Posts on Destinations.

I Feel Like a Kid in a Candy Store [Encore Publication]: Capturing the spectacular SF Movement Arts Festival

Note: If you live in the SF Bay Area, please plan to attend the 2020 installment of this amazing event on January 24 at Grace Cathedral.

As an official photographer once again for this year’s SF Movement Arts Festival, I look forward to the privilege and pleasure of capturing images of most of the more than 300 talented and diverse performers who will participate in this year’s version of this amazing event. If you live in the SF Bay Area, please plan to attend this coming Friday, January 24.

This epic event of breathtaking beauty and scope brings together many of my favorite choreographers and dancers–those with whom I collaborate throughout the year, their younger students, and some who I’ve never met before–representing a tremendous range of movement practices and dance styles, and throws them all into the grand interior spaces of San Francisco’s iconic Grace Cathedral. My assignment, truly a labor of love, is to stay all day and all night: for the rehearsals, side photo shoots, and the performance, in an effort to capture images of nearly every performer in the festival. Truly, I feel like a kid in a candy store, having the opportunity to make images with so many amazing movement practitioners in this ethereal space, all in one day.

Today’s post, presented as a simple photo essay, shares some of my favorite images from this mind-boggling event. All I will add in the way of technical notes are a few points my regular readers will already know to expect from me:

When shooting fast-moving action in a relatively dark space, use as fast a lens as you can given your focal length needs, boost your camera’s ISO sensitivity setting to as high as you can get away with, and choose an aperture as wide as possible given the depth-of-field you seek
Choose a shutter speed that is fast enough to freeze the performers’ movement, unless you’re intending to create an artistic motion blur
Watch your backgrounds: what’s behind your main subject is as or more important than your subject itself, so try to choose a pleasing or less distracting background whenever possible, and keep your horizons level
Compose your images with an eye toward putting your viewer within the performance to experience the beauty, athleticism, and grace first-hand
Shoot lots of images because the performers’ body postures, gestures, and facial expressions will change in an instant and you want to be sure to capture a few frames that bring out their very best.

You can view and purchase all of the images in this post, and many more, by visiting my web gallery here: SFMAF Photo Gallery .

I hope you’ve enjoyed this small sampler of images from the incredible SF Movement Arts Festival. You can view and purchase all of these and many more by visiting my web gallery here: SFMAF Photo Gallery .

Do you have a favorite festival or cultural event that inspires and excites you so thoroughly that you feel you could photograph it every day? What are your go-to techniques for capturing images at these events? Please share your thoughts here!

Focus on Turkey [Encore Publication]: Spectacular photographic opportunities abound in this troubled nation

In the fall of 2015, my wife and I traveled throughout Turkey on a 2.5-week journey that included adventures in Istanbul, Cappadocia, the Turquoise Coast, and Ephesus. We traveled with Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT) in the company of a local Turkish trip leader, and we had a wonderful, safe experience. In today’s post I share our experiences and some of my favorite images from this spectacular but troubled nation.

First, a few words about safety. Even when we traveled in September and October of 2015, there were concerns about the safety of travel in Turkey. We did not visit the far southeastern regions of Turkey due to the ongoing violence between various factions from ISIS, Kurdish separatist groups, and the Turkish government. There was a bombing with many casualties in Ankara while we were visiting a different part of Turkey. Since our trip, the situation has deteriorated as a result of an escalating crisis in and around the border with Syria, terrorist actions throughout the country, and the broad government crackdown in the wake of the attempted coup earlier this year. OAT, the company we traveled with, has since suspended all of their trips to Turkey. Tourism in Turkey is being devastated by the concerns of safety on the ground.

So why would anyone want to go to Turkey? The cultural, historic, and natural appeals of this destination are undeniable. It is a travel photographer’s paradise. And safety is a relative term. I’ve traveled in over 100 countries and many of them were considered “unsafe” when I visited, but my only two close encounters with real terrorism were in supposedly “safe” cities: a bombing in Tokyo and a mass shooting in Los Angeles. I felt safer in Turkey late last year than I do in many other parts of the world. That said, the situation on the ground has deteriorated since I visited, tours to Turkey are becoming hard to find, and only you can decide on your tolerance for risk. So perhaps wait for more order to return to Turkey before traveling there to make your own images, but in any case you can enjoy my images from this fascinating and gloriously beautiful part of the world.

Our adventure began in Istanbul, an ancient city situated at the border between Europe and Asia. Its place as a crossroads of history from Roman times through the Byzantine Era, the Ottoman Empire, and the modern Turkish republic is apparent as you stroll its winding streets and ply its crowded waterways. The are opportunities to make great images everywhere in the city.

Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia, the foremost Byzantine church, is nearly 1500 years old. When shooting grand architectural sites from up-close, it’s a challenge to try to avoid distortion due to perspective and the necessity of using a wide-angle lens. Here I kept the horizon level with the ground to avoid excessive distortion. Buy this photo

The best baklava in Istanbul? Perhaps. I certainly didn’t taste any better baklava in the city, and believe me, I tried a lot of baklava. To make this portrait, I asked our trip leader to introduce me to the baker, who was happy to pose with his wares. This was shot with natural light and just a touch of fill flash. Buy this photo

View of the Galata Tower from across the Bosphorous. Buy this photo

After Istanbul, we traveled to the central region of Cappadocia, famous for its “fairy chimneys,” natural spires formed by the erosion of soft tufa rock. This region is a veritable dream for travel photographers!

Upon arriving in Cappadocia, we were thrilled to learn our hotel room was inside an ancient cave dwelling. (Not to worry, it had been recently remodeled.) When shooting interiors, it’s usually best to use a fast wide-angle lens and to compose the image carefully so as to gain the viewing perspective you want. Buy this photo

The Goreme Open Air Museum comprises dozens of ancient Byzantine churches carved out of the tufa rock. Remember to capture some images that include yourself and your travel companions. Refer to this post for more practical tips about making great self-portraits while traveling: Post on Self Portraits. To make this image, I set up the camera on a lightweight travel tripod, composed it by having my wife stand in front of the “fairy chimney” church, then joined her in the frame and triggered the camera using a remote release. Buy this photo

The soft tufa stone formations look almost like sand dunes in the late afternoon glow. I shot in RAW mode (as always!) and underexposed slightly to allow for a higher-contrast image during post-processing. Careful cropping also helps a striking landscape really pop. Buy this photo

We awoke at 5:30 AM to the sight out our cave-hotel’s window of hundreds of hot air balloons launching about the fairy chimneys. I jumped out of bed, barely remembering to throw some clothes on, before running out the our balcony to set up a tripod and capture this amazing scene. I exposed for the rock formations and allowed the balloons to be partially silhouetted. Buy this photo

We visited a school in the region, always a favorite activity during our travels. While I also made quite a few images in the classrooms with the kids and teachers, I like the unusual perspective in this image. It was shot from outside the school building as the kids came to the windows to wave goodbye. Buy this photo

We took a very memorable hot air balloon ride at dawn over Cappadocia’s otherworldly landscape. I made this image looking down from our gondola at three other balloons in various stages of preparing to launch. The amphitheaters of soft tufa rock can be seen in the middle-ground and the rising sun in the far background. Buy this photo

At a rug-weaving cooperative, this woman enjoys a cup of Turkish coffee during her break. I was drawn by her colorful clothes and enigmatic smile. I asked our trip leader to introduce us and inquire if it was okay for me to make a portrait. Shooting quickly with natural light only, no time to set up a tripod, and a too-slow lens mounted on the camera, I had to boost the ISO setting quite high. Fortunately, I was able to reduce much of the noise in the image during post-processing. Buy this photo

Hiking up to the top of Uchisar Castle, the highest elevation in Cappadocia. Buy this photo

We had the chance to watch a whirling dervish ceremony. The Samazens, followers of Mevlana Rumi, are a mystical Sufi order who practice the ritual we witnessed. To capture the sense of motion, I used a slower shutter speed to blur the participants. Buy this photo

The Mevlana Museum houses the monastery and tomb of Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi, the mystic who founded the “Whirling Dervish” sect. This image captures the incredible workmanship on the interior of the monastery, especially around Rumi’s tomb. Flashes and tripods are not allowed inside the tomb, so I had to use a fast lens and high ISO setting to handhold the camera. Buy this photo

We departed Cappadocia and drove to Antalya, the gateway to the southern Mediterranean region known as the Turquoise Coast. Antalya boasts an ancient Roman harbor and a fascinating archaeological museum.

We happened upon an interesting scene when several archaeologists and their students attempted to match a recently excavated statuary head to a body already in the museum. Always be on the lookout for serendipitous scenes, which often make the most memorable images from a trip. Buy this photo

These Lycian house-tombs were carved into the cliffs centuries before the Romans arrived at Myra. Buy this photo

We boarded our gulet, a traditional Turkish wooden sailing yacht, for a four-day cruise along the Turquoise Coast. Each day offered a wonderful photographic tapestry of great images, as we sailed, hiked, swam, and dined.

Kayakoy is a ghost town, a Greek village abandoned when the Turks expelled Greeks after their war for independence in the early 20th century. Turks living in Greece were also expelled the same year. Buy this photo

My wife Mary spotted this rare wildcat, which looked to us a bit like our local Californian bobcat, along one of our daily hikes. I changed lenses very quickly while slowly approaching the cat, then captured this portrait using a medium telephoto just moments before he slipped into the brush. Buy this photo

A riverboat took us from our gulet yacht to the ancient Lycian site of Caunos. This image of a beautiful kingfisher along the side of the river was captured using a long telephoto lens and a fast shutter speed to allow for handholding the camera on a rocking boat. Buy this photo

On our last full day in Turkey, we finally got to visit the splendid ruins of Ephesus, a major Roman city in the region.

The ruins at Ephesus include the incomparable Library of Celsus, pictured here in a self-portrait of my wife and me. To achieve the broad depth-of-field required to ensure both the people and the buildings were in sharp focus, I used a small aperture (large F-stop number). Major archaeological sites are often packed with other visitors, so try to find vantage points that allow the crowds to appear small in comparison to your main subjects. Buy this photo

Throughout Turkey, the food was vibrant, simple, and delicious. Our final day’s lunch, in a beautiful village in the mountains, consisted of course after course of delightful meze (appetizers). Buy this photo

Turkey is a remarkable destination for travel photography. Let us hope its current troubles will soon be a thing of the past and that safe and affordable travel will again be available there.

Have you visited Turkey? What were your most memorable experiences there? Please share your thoughts here.

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

Travel Photographers of the World, Unite!: Join my Meetup group

Dear Readers,

I have organized a new Meetup group, Travel Photography Workshops, as a forum to connect and learn in a variety of different ways. Whether through photo walks, hands-on workshops, classes, exhibitions, and photography tours to locations around the world, our goal will always be to fuel our passion for travel photography as we grow our skills. Please join us! Details at: http://meetu.ps/c/3Yl63/vbccL/f.

Love to explore the world through a lens? Do you strive to capture authentic images of the people and places you visit? Excited about using your camera to build bridges across diverse cultures? Want to continually improve your photography in all genres? Then this meetup is for you!

Travel photography is thrilling because it’s about discovery and adventure. Whether we’re halfway around the world or a few short blocks from our home, our camera is a tool to capture the spirit of the places we visit and to share that spirit with our community. The travel photographer must be versatile, switching effortlessly among many genres including landscape, wildlife, cityscape, portrait, performing arts, nighttime, and street photography. Share your passion for travel photography with other like-minded enthusiasts, and build your skills in a supportive community.

We’ll connect and learn in a variety of different ways. Whether through photo walks, hands-on workshops, classes, exhibitions, and photography tours to locations around the world, our goal will always be to fuel our passion for travel photography as we grow our skills. Please join us!

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 Morocco: A visual feast for all the senses

Our Moroccan adventure began in the capital city, Rabat. Rabat boasts a twelfth-century mosque and minaret that would have been the world’s largest had they been completed.

From Rabat we traveled to ancient Fez, with its rich Moroccan cultural legacy.

En route from the Sahara to the ancient and chaotic city of Marrakesh, we visited several villages and met some of their people.

Leaving Marrakesh behind, we traveled to Casablanca, our final stop before returning home.

You can see more of my images from our Morocco adventure here: https://www.kadlerphotography.com/Travel-Photography/Morocco.

Have you traveled and photographed in Morocco? Please share your experiences, and images, by commenting on this post!

Every Day I Write the Book [Encore Publication]: Even in the digital world, there’s a place for a hardcover photo book from your trip

In the brave new digital world, we have a lot of ways to share our travel photos after (and sometimes even before) we return from the trip: social media, on-screen slideshows, video montages, and of course the enduringly popular paper print. Even with all of these very immediate sharing options, one of my favorite formats for preserving my travel images is the hardcopy photo book, and today there are more choices than ever before regarding how to create these wonderful keepsakes.

Our living room bookshelf and coffee table are home to more than a dozen photo books, each one showcasing the images and preserving the often fleeting memories of the details of a major trip we’ve taken. Here’s why I love this method of sharing travel photography and how to create your own photo books.

The leather cover of a photo book showcasing our recent travels in Turkey.

Why create a photo book? Over time, new digital formats replace existing ones, and the very old ones become obsolete. Within about 20 years, it is quite likely that none of our present formats of storing data will still be readable. The printed page has much more staying power. It is estimated that photos printed on high quality paper using high quality inks, and stored away from direct sunlight, can last for 100 years. I’m a big fan of framed prints, as well, but a photo book is more cost-effective and space-efficient as a means to preserve many more photos than we could easily hang on our walls. And because photo books can include customized captions to accompany the included images, they’re a great reference source for refreshing our memories about what we saw, when, and where. Finally, photo books look great and are fun conversation-starters to tell the story of our travels when friends and family come to visit.

How do you create a photo book? There are a number of methods, but unless you are a scrapbooker or handy with bookbinding, all of them involve sending your specifications and images to a vendor that will print the book, bind it, and mail it to you. Some software packages, including Lightroom, have built-in modules for creating photo books. And most photo sharing websites, including SmugMug (a fabulous site used by many professionals including me), Snapfish, Shutterfly, and Apple Photos, allow you to create and purchase photo books from your images. These services vary in features, price, and quality, so shop carefully. Most of my past photo books were created using Snapfish, but I am transitioning to using Lightroom’s and SmugMug’s services instead. I will report on the results in a future post.

Good book-creation software should allow you to choose from a wide range of formats on each page to display one or several photos plus text.

The basic process works similarly for any of these services. You specify the book size, cover material, paper quality, printing quality, and other basic parameters for your book. Then, you fill the pages of the book with your photos, specifying the layout you want for each page. You can add captions for individual images or series of images, and you may be able to add various special effects. At the end of the process, you place your order for the book to be printed and mailed to you. Using the service offered by Blurb, which is available via SmugMug and Lightroom, you can self-publish a large or small print run of books and make them available for sale on Amazon or directly on your own website.

The process of creating a photo book using Lightroom’s Book module (shown here) is fairly straightforward. It’s even more intuitive using an online service such as Snapfish or Shutterfly.

When you receive your photo book a few days after placing your order, you’ll have a keepsake suitable for sharing with visitors and for preserving your own precious travel memories.

A two-page spread in our Turkey photo book showcases several images of the incredible rock formations in the Cappadocia region.

Have you created photo books from your travel images? Which service did you use and how was your experience? Please share your thoughts here.

Interested in reading more posts about sharing your travel images? Click here to see them all: http://www.to-travel-hopefully.com/category/travel/share/.

Focus on How Weird Street Faire [Encore Publication]: A case study on simple techniques to capture winning images of festivals

As a professional travel photographer, I shoot regularly in nearly all genres of photography. A typical day on the road might include shooting landscapes, wildlife, cityscapes, portraits, action (sports, dance, performance), and nighttime photography. While I enjoy all types of shooting, my great joy as a photographer is capturing portraits of the people I meet. Whether close to home or halfway around the world, getting to know the people and learning about their culture through making portraits of them is a wonderful experience. And there’s no better way to capture images of many amazing people in a short time than by attending local festivals. People tend to be their best selves at special celebrations like festivals and street fairs. They dress exuberantly, dance with abandon, make new friends quickly, and (nearly always) are overjoyed to pose for photos.

I shoot about a hundred festivals and other special events every year, so I’ve learned a few tips about how to make the best images during these occasions. In today’s post I share some simple but effective techniques for capturing great portraits at festivals and other gatherings, using San Francisco’s recent How Weird Street Faire as a case study. How Weird is a vibrant and colorful, only-in-SF, annual celebration of individuality, tolerance, music, art, and hula hoops. Read on to see some of my favorite images from this year’s festival, presented along with some discussion of how they were made. To view more of my images, or to buy some, check out this gallery: How Weird photo gallery.

I see a lot of fellow photographers at events like How Weird shooting with huge telephotos and even tripods, like they’re after images of wildlife on a Kenyan safari. In my opinion, they are missing the point. We’re making portraits of people here, so use a normal or moderate telephoto portrait lens, preferably a fast prime lens, ditch the tripod and monopod at home, and get in close to chat with and get to know the people you’re photographing. When you interact with people, you get a sense of what makes them special, allowing both you and them to capture that special trait in your photos. Random sniping from far away with a long telephoto will yield far more bland and generic photos. All of my images at How Weird Street Faire were made with a single camera body and one lens, my trusty 85mm f/1.8 portrait lens. Sometimes simple is better, especially when it comes to capturing people at fast-moving events.

Larger groups can be challenging to capture in portraits, particularly in bustling spaces like those of a festival. When they couple I was chatting with suddenly ran into a friend and they had a group hug, I quickly stepped back a few paces and made this expressive and engaging portrait. It’s okay to break the rules sometimes–here, one of the subject’s faces is completely obscured and another’s is partially obscured, yet the portrait works because it captures the energy and affection of the moment.

When photographers argue that the “street photography” approach (candidly sneaking images of people who aren’t aware they’re present) is the best for capturing people’s true essence, I show them images like this one. This wholly genuine and unguarded moment of the girl dancing was made with her full knowledge and permission. The trick is to chat with the subject and get their permission for photography first, then to lay back for a while and let them go back to what they were doing. After a few minutes, they’ll nearly forget you’re there and they will reveal their true selves. But unlike shots you sneak without permission, now you have a subject happy to have you photographing them, and you can take your time and not have to rush your work in order to hide your shooting from them.

Often we see only the most obvious subjects at crowded, chaotic events like festivals. It’s easy to spend all our time shooting people dancing, partying, and displaying their costumes, but I try always to look for the more hidden people and infrastructure that support the event. This DJ was partially hidden atop the big dance stage and behind the banks of speakers, but she made a fun subject for this portrait.

Don’t be afraid to get in close. This portrait really pops because the tight composition allows us to focus our attention on the symmetry and color of the subject’s hair and costume.

The interactions between people are at least as much fun to observe and capture as the individuals themselves. I had chatted with and photographed a group of people for a few minutes when I observed this fun interaction, so I stepped back and framed some shots of the two young people together.

While post-processing my images after the shoot, I decided to render this one in monochrome to achieve a gritty urban street scene sort of feel. Often color can distract from the power of an image, so always consider which of your images could benefit from conversion to black-and-white.

In ordinary daily life, I find that perhaps two-thirds of people are willing to have their portrait made if the photographer spends some time getting to know them first and then asks politely. But at a festival, nearly everyone is excited about posing for portraits. The trick is to capture scenes where they show you their underlying personalities a bit, rather than just striking a cliched pose for the camera. To achieve that here, I spent a few minutes shooting, asking the couple to pose in different styles and have fun with it.

Putting it all together. Here’s a summary of the basic techniques I use when shooting portraits at festivals: 1) Use a fast prime normal or portrait lens. 2) Set your camera for a fast shutter speed (1/500 second or faster is good for dancing and other fast action), wide aperture (f/2.5 or wider is ideal except for large groups) to isolate the subject, and an ISO appropriate to the lighting of the scene (I used ISO 100 the whole day due to the bright outdoor light). 3) Get to know your subject before shooting, let them relax, and capture them during an authentic moment. 4) Try to compose the portrait with as uncluttered a background as possible; of course, this is often difficult at crowded festivals. 5) During post-processing, crop to clean up the scene and then vignette just a touch to further clean up busy backgrounds.

I hope this discussion of techniques to capture portraits during festivals has been helpful. The best way to learn these techniques and to find your own style is to shoot and shoot some more!

Please leave a comment with your own thoughts and tips about how to make great images of people at celebrations.

Want to read more posts about photographic techniques? Find them all here: Posts about techniques.

“Peripheral Vision: Divergent Travel Photography” exhibition remains open until January 12

Dear Readers,

There’s still time to check out the juried travel photography exhibition at Santa Cruz Art League: http://ow.ly/LSRU50xMTw4…/peripheral-vision-divergent-travel-phot…/. It runs through January 12. Come see some striking contemporary photography from a variety of artists representing a wide range of subjects, styles, and regions. And two of my pieces are still available for purchase, including the signature “Reflective Gator” image that hangs with pride of place under the sign at the entrance of the show :-).

Focus on 2018 SF Pride Parade [Encore Publication]: Capturing diversity, purpose, and intimacy

It’s no surprise that San Francisco hosts one of the world’s oldest and largest LGBTQ Pride events in the world. Each year, the parade and festival grow bigger and better attended. SF Pride is one of my favorite annual events in my home region, the SF Bay Area, and what I love the most about this exuberant celebration is its remarkable focus on the central human values of diversity, inclusion, activism, hope, and love. In today’s post, I share some of my favorite images from this year’s Pride Parade, along with a few words about how the images were made. The goal is to showcase the incredible diversity and sense of social purpose of the participants and observers at this grand celebration, while also striving to capture the small, more intimate, moments. Remember that you can view–and purchase–all of these images as well as many more by clicking on any of the images in this post.

In a frenzied environment like that of most festivals, parades, and street fairs, it can be a challenge to make a nice clean portrait with an uncluttered background. Sometimes it’s possible to relocate the subject to an area with a clean and clutter-free background, but most often (as with this portrait) that isn’t feasible. In those cases, my best practices are to use a moderate telephoto “portrait” lens, select a wide aperture (small F-stop number) to throw the background into soft focus, get in close to the subject, and use a touch of post-crop vignetting during post-processing.

Huge festivals and celebrations such as SF Pride can be overwhelming, with hundreds of thousands of participants and observers present. I strive to capture the smaller, more intimate, moments within this gigantic environment. Here I captured a beautiful portrait of two participants sharing their love, which I think encapsulates the entire meaning of Pride events around the world. I had been chatting with these two people and had obtained their permission to photograph them before making this image. I used a medium telephoto “portrait” lens and got in close to isolate the couple from the busy background.

Color and texture play a huge role in photographic composition and expression. As photographers, we’re very aware of these factors when we compose landscapes or nature scenes, but even when making a portrait, we should always be considering the mood evoked by the colors, patterns, and textures in the scene. I love this portrait for its moody use of the similar shades of orange-red offset against the multiple colors of the flowers and the cigarette. This is an image that tells a story, but that also leaves most of the story untold.

Another intimate portrait, this one made of a young woman doing yoga poses while waiting to march in the parade. She had an adorable sense of humor and expressive face, which, coupled with her offbeat outfit, made a great closeup portrait. Don’t be afraid to get in close to your subject, but always get to know them and ask permission first.

An iconic Pride scene, this portrait was made with a longer telephoto lens, its use made necessary by the greater distance to the parade float in the middle of a wide street. While I prefer to get up-close and personal with my subjects, and to get to know them before shooting, sometimes we have to shoot from farther away, such as during a fast-moving and crowded parade. It’s therefore important to have the gear and expertise to make portraits from any range. Even when shooting from farther away, though, my key portrait rules still apply: try to capture the portrait with as uncluttered a background as possible, use a wide aperture to isolate the main subject from the background, and apply a bit of post-crop vignetting during post-processing.

It can be tricky to try to capture nudity in a tasteful way suitable for sharing and selling to broad audiences. I spent some time chatting with these two activists to get to know them and to understand their cause–overturning San Francisco’s ban on public nudity–before starting to shoot. Even though they had given me permission to photograph them nude (which is an important courtesy all photographers should follow, although no permission is legally required to photograph people in a public space in the US), my market for images containing graphic nudity is small, so I strive to capture scenes that tell the story but with implied nudity rather than graphic nudity. Here I found a vantage point that allowed the subjects’ arms to strategically cover certain parts of their bodies. The resulting portrait conveys the story of their purpose and gets across the idea of their nudity, but is still shareable and sell-able to a broad market.

Another close-up portrait, using the same techniques I shared earlier in this post.

Another of my favorite portraits from the day, this one also tells a small-scale, intimate story, conveyed by getting in close and isolating the subjects from the busy background. The end result is a sense that these two people are celebrating their own story, even in the midst of the bustling celebration going on around them.

I met this young woman in a very crowded space, but fortunately I had the opportunity to walk her to a less cluttered space to make her portrait. I’m always on the lookout for quieter and cleaner spaces when shooting festivals and celebrations. A few steps was all it took for us to find this simple, clean background, allowing the portrait to really pop.

Group portraits pose a special challenge in busy public spaces: how to capture all the group members in crisp focus while also trying to isolate them from the cluttered background. Here I used a medium aperture to keep the people in sharp focus while slightly softening the background, but since a very wide aperture cannot be used for groups, the softening effect will be mild. As a result, it’s especially important when making these group portraits to seek an interesting, complementary, or clean background.

As their float passed by in the staging and assembly area before the official start of the parade, I observed an opportunity to capture this quiet scene of one woman helping to apply her friend’s makeup. I used a moderate telephoto lens and shot several frames to increase the odds of getting a clean and interesting shot.

When making portraits of kids or seated people, it’s a good practice to get down to their level. Getting in close is also usually an effective technique, both to isolate the subject and to capture a sense of their spirit.

What are some of your favorite celebrations, and how do you capture their diversity in your images? Please share your thoughts here.

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

Wildlife and Safari Gear [Encore Publication]: Basic equipment to capture wildlife while traveling or close to home

Wildlife photography is one of the most exciting and rewarding pursuits I know, but it is also very challenging. Whether on safari in far-flung wilderness regions around the world or in a park or zoo near home, capturing great images of the local fauna requires plenty of patience, a little bit of luck, and some specialized gear. This post outlines the basic equipment needed for wildlife photography.

Sometimes we get lucky. This alligator was seeking what little sunshine was available on an overcast winter’s day on the bayou in Louisiana. He stayed sufficiently still that I was able to capture this image by handholding a medium telephoto lens from our airboat. Buy this photo

Occasionally, a critter may scamper, fly, or swim right up to where the photographer happens to be standing, but in the vast majority of cases, if we want to capture a really moving and uninhibited portrait of an animal, we need a long telephoto lens. Working with “big glass” not only fills more of the frame with the main subject, but it has the added benefit of allowing the photographer to shoot from a vantage point far enough away from the animal so as not to frighten it. It’s also very important when photographing wildlife that we make every effort to keep the wildlife wild, and using a long lens keeps us at a sufficient distance that the creatures we’re observing are less likely to become accustomed to the sight, sound, and smell of humans.

I like to carry both a medium telephoto and a long telephoto when shooting wildlife, so as to be prepared for a variety of situations. My medium lens of choice is the Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 VR lens. While this lens is built on aging technology and doesn’t always feel as solid as more professional lenses, it is relatively small and lightweight, fairly inexpensive, and provides a very effective vibration reduction function. This lens has been a staple in my bag for many years, during which time I’ve used it to capture some of my favorite images.

My go-to long lens for wildlife photography is the Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 lens. It’s more economical than a Nikon or Canon super-tele, and it produces reasonably sharp images even when used at its widest aperture. You can spend much more on this type of big glass if you want or need to, but I’ve found this lens works quite well for me.

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

When shooting far-off and often rapidly moving animal subjects with big glass, it is important to have a good means of stabilizing the camera. Depending on the shooting situation, I use either a lightweight tripod or a beanbag support.

A lightweight travel tripod is perfect for those situations when you have plenty of space and plenty of time in one place. I like the Manfrotto Be Free travel tripod. It folds up to an incredibly small size yet affords a surprising amount of stability. The included ball head works well but is difficult to adjust for sensitivity. This tripod is designed to fit into a special pouch in my favorite travel photography backpack, also made by Manfrotto.

For situations when you will be on the move much of the time, such as on game drives using safari vehicles, a beanbag support is extremely useful, as you cannot fit a tripod in a safari vehicle and a monopod is awkward. The bag can be emptied for convenient travel and then filled with “beans” (usually synthetic) upon arrival. It is placed on top of the safari vehicle while shooting, with the camera and long lens resting on the beanbag. While the beanbag that I use is no longer available, this one is well reviewed by photographers and represents a good value.

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A sleepy leopard yawns in a tree above the Endless Plains of Serengeti National Park. This image was captured using a 500mm lens resting on a beanbag support placed on the roof of our safari vehicle. Buy this photo

With a couple of good telephoto lenses, including one long one, and a couple of good options for stabilizing them, you will be armed with the right basic tools for bringing home truly memorable images of the wildlife you encounter on your travels. Happy hunting!

What are your favorite wildlife subjects and locations, and what gear do you use to capture them? Please share your experiences here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Finally, we meet Rupa at Sheroe’s Cafe in Agra. Sheroes’ is a project founded by and for the women of India who are survivors of acid attacks. We were so inspired by meeting Rupa and learning about her story and her road to physical and emotional recovery after her brutal attack at the age of 15 by her stepmother. Through this project, Rupa has gained the confidence and independence to leave home, meet other survivors and activists, build a business as a clothing designer, seek legal justice against her attacker, and access the surgical care required to reconstruct her face. The courage and resilience shown by Rupa and the other women we met at the cafe moved us to want to help their cause to educate people and improve the treatment of India’s women. My portrait of Rupa is powerful because it doesn’t shy away from her scars but allows her courage, resilience, and beauty to shine through. I got in close to Rupa using an 85-mm prime portrait lens and composed a head-and-shoulders image from eye level. I exposed for her face and blouse, which she designed herself, bringing out the vibrant saturated colors. A shallow depth-of-field ensured that Rupa’s face would be emphasized while the background would be soft.

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

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

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

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

New Year’s Resolutions [Encore Publication]: My opinionated list of the top 5 promises all travel photographers should make and keep

Personally, I’m not a big fan of new year’s resolutions. Common sense dictates that if we really want to make change in our lives, we should resolve to take specific steps toward that change every day. Promises we make on December 31 each year will most likely be broken by January 15. That’s certainly what I’ve observed over many years on the running trails and gyms where I’ve run or worked out daily. A huge surge in attendance begins on January 1 and dissipates within about two weeks.

So this year, ahead of the new year’s holiday, I’m re-posting my earlier thoughts on what we travel photographers should resolve to do differently. In the three years since I originally posted this article, I actually have made progress against all five resolutions.

Book that once-in-a-lifetime trip now:
Visit that exotic destination you’ve always wanted to see! Buy this photo
That travel photography “bucket list” needs to be emptied before you kick the proverbial bucket. I know too many people who always found excuses to put off taking the trips they most desired, until it became too late for them. The kids are too young, my job is too demanding right now, I can’t afford the cost. I’ve made these excuses, too. But the one thing we can’t live a full life without and can’t ever lose once we’ve attained it is experience. Every trip I’ve taken helped me grow as a person and as a photographer, and also helped me grow closer to my family and other travel companions. So book that trip today and go this year. You won’t regret it.
Just get out there and shoot:
There are countless exciting subjects for your photography within a few miles of your home. Buy this photo
Even professional travel photographers can’t be on a lengthy shoot in an exotic part of the globe all the time. So, book those once (or a few times) in a lifetime trips as soon as feasible, but in the meantime find some wonderful local attractions where you can hone your craft by making compelling images. I love to shoot little-known local cultural events such as street fairs and performances of dance, theater, and music. It’s also a great pleasure to find scenic spots near home where we can make some striking landscape images that haven’t been shot thousands of times before. Remember, you’re the local expert near your home, so seek out frequent opportunities to shoot in your own community.
Learn to use your camera as a tool to bridge the gap between your culture and the culture of the land you’re visiting:
Photography can bring us closer to the people we meet on our journeys. Buy this photo
Instead of letting your photography separate you from the people you’ve come to learn from, resolve to turn your image-making into an opportunity to meet more people and get to know them more deeply. Check out my pillar post on how to do this: Post on Photography as a Cultural Bridging Tool.
Approach wildlife with respect:
The more we learn about and respect the fauna we encounter during our travels, the healthier they will emerge from the experience (and the better our images will turn out). Buy this photo
A photo safari is a life-changing experience and should be on every travel photographer’s list. But just as our cameras can be used either to alienate local people or to bond with them, so can photographing animals be used to harm them or to respect and help preserve them. Read this post for more detailed tips (Post on Wildlife Photography), but in the meantime I will summarize by emphasizing the importance of prioritizing the animal’s welfare ahead of our desire to get an amazing shot of it. Getting too close to wildlife will stress the animal and could even cause it to become lunch (or cause a predator to starve by losing its meal). The more we get to know a species’ behavior before encountering it in the wild, the better our images will be and the healthier the animal will emerge from the encounter.
Continually improve technique:
I strive to hone my technique with every shoot. Buy this photo
There are more important elements in photography than technique, but a mastery of technique does help us make the images we want, so I always work to improve mine. If you haven’t already gained the confidence to shoot in manual mode, start learning now. Remember that while cameras have become very smart, they aren’t artists and they can’t know what the photographer is trying to achieve, so learn to take control of your camera’s settings today. Here’s a short post listing five key techniques that will help your images stand out: Post on Top Five photography “hacks”.

So, resolve to take that trip of a lifetime, shoot locally while you’re waiting for it, learn to use your camera as a tool to interact beneficially with the people and the wildlife you meet during your travels, and work to hone your technique. I’ll be doing the same! Happy trails in 2020.

What do you resolve to do in 2020? Please share your thoughts here.

Focus on Yellowstone and Grand Teton [Enore Publication]: The oldest national park in the US remains one of the best photographic destinations

Want to read other posts about travel photography destinations around the world? Find them all here: Posts on Destinations.

Luck Favors the Prepared [Encore Publication]: Tools for planning your shot

It was Louis Pasteur who said, “Fortune favors the prepared mind.” We usually hear the quote paraphrased as, “Luck favors the prepared.” For travel photographers, there is often a great deal of luck involved in capturing a truly great image, but there are some very useful tools that we can use to help us plan to be in the right place at the right time with the right gear. Let’s look at just a few of my favorites.

I’ll start with a quick review of the most obvious resources. I would never plan an hour-long photo shoot, let alone a month-long trip to a far-flung travel destination, without doing some research. What are the must-see locations, and what dates and times of day are perfect for each one? What are the events or activities that most authentically represent the locations I am visiting? Is there a livestock market, a street festival, or a religious celebration taking place while I’m in the region? How can I build an itinerary that best incorporates all of these locations? Great resources for this type of research include guidebooks (online and hardcopy), online review sites such as Trip Advisor and Yelp, mapping and navigation apps (Google Maps is still my all-around favorite, but several others have their own advantages), and local weather sites. I like to build my itinerary by customizing an online map to show all of the locations I’d like to visit, then creating a routing that links the locations in the proper order. If travel by air, rail, bus, or boat is involved, I research those schedules and fares to determine the best way to get from one place to the next. Airline consolidation sites such as Orbitz can be quite helpful for finding the best flights at the best prices. If the itinerary has been pre-planned by a travel company, then I will still do most of this background research to better understand the locations we’ll be visiting.

Once I know where I’ll be going and what events I plan to shoot, I develop a shot list. Some photographers craft very detailed and specific shot lists, but I like to keep it quite flexible and informal, often simply jotting down my ideas in the calendar event on my phone that is associated with each planned shoot. After all, if I adhere too closely to a shot list, I will just end up with the same images that hundreds or thousands of other visitors have captured after doing the same research. Serendipity and the artist’s eye have their place in travel photography, too. The research phase can also inform me as to what clothing, gear, and other essentials I should bring to each location.

Now I’d like to introduce three smartphone apps that I consider indispensable for travel photography. First, there’s Photo Pills, an app that incorporates several essential tools into one package. I use Photo Pills for planning shots where I need to know how to get all the elements, including location, date, and time of day, to come together. For example, during the Perseid Meteor Shower, I wanted to find a dark sky location with a nice foreground and a view toward the galactic core of our Milky Way. This way, I could capture images including the meteor shower, the Milky Way, and the pretty landscape in the foreground. I had a location in mind, a beautiful spot where there isn’t too much light pollution and with a gorgeous view over a reservoir and the Santa Cruz Mountains. The Planner tool in Photo Pills allowed me to visualize the foreground as viewed by my phone’s camera, superimposed against the Milky Way as it would appear on different days and times of day. I planned the shot for a certain time on each of several consecutive days, confirmed that the Milky Way would be rising in the desired direction and that the nearly full moon would have already set, and then waited for clear weather. The first night of the meteor shower was cloudy, but the second night was the charm, and I was able to capture this striking image.
Using the Photo Pills app on my smartphone, I was able to plan in advance for a location, date, and time that would maximize the chances of capturing the Perseid Meteor Shower and Milky Way over the lovely Crystal Springs Reservoir. Buy this photo

Here’s a screenshot of the Planner tool in Photo Pills that I used to prepare for this shoot.

The Photo Pills app has a number of tools to help plan and execute your shots.

Another useful app for planning the best locations, dates, and times for your shoots is TPE (The Photographer’s Ephemeris). I find this tool to be especially helpful for visualizing the path of the sun and moon across the field of view for any location I select. This app is very powerful, and I have only scratched the surface of what it can do to predict and prepare for photo opportunities.

The Photographer’s Ephemeris (TPE) is a powerful tool for planning any outdoor photo shoots.

A final app I will mention here is called Easy Release. Sometimes (read this post for details about model releases), we need a model release when a person or several people are clearly identifiable in a photo. I know some photographers who carry hardcopy model releases with them wherever they travel, but I find this to be cumbersome and impractical when on the road shooting. Instead, I use Easy Release on my phone, so I’m always ready to quickly prepare a release for a new friend to sign when they appear in my images. Even though the app has the ability to translate the text of the release into several languages, there are situations in which it isn’t reasonable to try to explain to a local person what’s in the release and why it’s required. Furthermore, I consider it to be exploitative if the person can’t reasonably be expected to understand what’s in the document or why they should be signing it. But there are times when having immediate access to a model release that can be prepared, signed, and stored right on my phone is a big advantage.

Easy Release is a convenient tool for creating, signing, sharing, and storing model releases when a person is clearly identifiable in photos.

With proper planning using readily available resources and various apps including the ones I’ve presented here, we can be better prepared to maximize our chances of capturing memorable images. Happy shooting, and remember that luck favors the prepared!

Do you have a favorite tool you use to plan for your photo adventures? How have you used this tool to get your shot? Please share your experiences here.

Want to read more posts about tools for planning your travel photography? Find them all here: Posts on Planning.

Focus on Total Solar Eclipse in Chile: A photo essay of images from Chile and Easter Island

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

Have you discovered any less known locations for Carnival celebrations? Please share your experiences and your photos here!

Celebration Time, Come On [Encore Publication]: How to shoot festivals, street fairs, and other celebrations

As a professional travel photographer, I have to be prepared at any given time to shoot in nearly every genre of photography. Landscapes, urban scenes, street photography, night and astrophotography, sports, wildlife, and portraiture are all stock-in-trade, and I love them all! But when I’m asked what my favorite photographic genre is, I reply that I love portraying living culture the most of all. Making images of people celebrating their culture, especially when those images convey a sense of place, is my top objective when I shoot, whether I’m halfway around the world or near home.

Culture can be expressed in small everyday elements of dress, gesture, and environment. But celebrations such as festivals, street fairs, religious observances, arts, and sports show us culture writ large. It is these outpourings of color, sounds, motion, and ritual that show us how people are different and yet similar all around the world. And of all the celebrations I shoot regularly, my favorite of all is the annual Carnaval San Francisco. So in today’s post, we’ll explore how to shoot striking images of cultural celebrations, using Carnaval SF as an example.

This year’s Carnaval was held this past Sunday. But I was privileged to be “embedded” with several of the comparsas, or Carnaval groups, during the months leading up to the big parade day. This allowed me the opportunity to get to know the leaders and dancers in these groups, making very special images of the preparations for Carnaval. While I won’t be including any of those behind-the-scenes images in today’s post, the images of the parade day itself did benefit from my having had the chance to get to know the members of these groups over the months leading up to the day. We’ll include some discussion of this observation in the post.

I’d like to start with an observation on gear. I see a lot of fellow photographers shooting at events like Carnaval with way too much gear. When I say too much gear, I mean more gear than is good for them or for the participants and observers of the festival. Several photographers had two or three DSLR bodies mounted with enormous zoom lenses and attached to large strobes with huge diffusers. Some used monopods and a few even tried to set up tripods for this rapidly moving and crowded event. I brought a single DSLR with two light and fast prime lenses (a 50mm “normal” lens, and an 85mm portrait lens). That’s it. I never mounted a zoom lens during the whole day of shooting and I never used any artificial light. And of course I went handheld the whole day; there’s really no safe or practical way to use a tripod at a crowded and mobile event. All 2500 images I made that day used just that compact kit, and I’m very happy with the results.

It’s a good idea to arrive well before the scheduled start time. Often, the best images of the day will be the ones you make during the preparations rather than during the event itself. For this image of a leader of the Viva la Diva group, who I knew well from working with them over the last few months, I got in close with an 85mm portrait lens and allowed her elaborate headdress to fill the entire frame. Buy this photo

Try to include some of the elements surrounding the people in the celebration. A portrait that shows a person or people within their surroundings is called an “environmental portrait,” and often these tell us more about the person and the culture than do close-ups. Buy this photo

Seek out the key people in a celebration, such as the King of Carnaval shown here. He has such an amazing presence that all I had to do was find the right vantage point and shoot away. I always look for uncluttered backgrounds when making portraits, so the background doesn’t distract much from the image. Buy this photo

Kids make wonderful subjects during celebrations, especially during those moments when they forget the camera is there and are completely uninhibited. Buy this photo

Try to choose backgrounds that complement your subject without competing with it. I asked this samba dancer to pose by a street mural whose bright blues complemented her own costume. Buy this photo

Group portraits can be challenging. It’s difficult during the chaos of a celebration to get everyone’s eyes on the camera. Try to find a vantage point that flatters everyone in the image (for full-body portraits, it’s often best to shoot from the level of the middle of the body, not from head level), choose an uncluttered and undistracting background, and select an aperture that gives just enough depth-of-field to keep all the people in focus while softening the background. Buy this photo

To make close-up portraits during the actual celebration (in this case, a parade), it is not necessary to use a long telephoto lens. Shooting with a long lens means you’re “taking” the portrait, not “making” the portrait. You simply can’t interact with your subject while shooting from far away. I prefer to use a prime normal or portrait lens so that I can interact with my subject and make an image where his personality shines through. It helped here that I knew the members of this group from our interactions over the last few months. Buy this photo

Another reason to use a fast prime lens is that you can choose a very wide aperture (here, F/2.0 using an F/1.4 lens) to get tack-sharp focus on the subject’s face while softening the background and sometimes other parts of the body. Here I wanted to emphasize the pointing gesture by having the fingers so close as to be out of focus, while the dancer’s face and body are in sharp focus. Buy this photo

For images that really pop, use a large aperture (small F-stop number) to soften the background and separate the subject from the other people and objects around him. Buy this photo

During the chaos and cacophony of an urban celebration, it’s nice to find those quiet moments, too. While most festival dances are joyous and boisterous, this Latin American folkloric dance is quiet and mournful. I wanted the portrait to reflect that mood, so I shot from the side as if walking next to the dancer and caught the quiet gesture of holding the white handkerchief. Again, a large aperture was used to blur the background and emphasize the subject. Buy this photo

I look for scenes where participants are just being themselves. These girls were having a blast, marching and chatting with each other, but they also were interacting with the crowd. I got down nearly to the ground so as to shoot from their level and framed the image so as to emphasize the color and pattern of their costumes. Buy this photo

Most images of parades are shot from straight ahead looking backward onto the subjects. You’ll observe in this post that most of my images are not made from that perspective, but occasionally it does work to frame a great scene, such as this delightful image of a salsa dancing couple. Buy this photo

It can be challenging to include a whole parade contingent in one shot. Here I was able to frame the whole group in formation, including some of the lovely San Francisco houses on the steep hill behind, by running ahead to the truck in front of the dancers and getting as much distance as I could between me and them. I shot with an 85mm lens and selected a small aperture (large F-number) so as to keep all of the dancers and the background in focus. Buy this photo

With bold and colorful costumes, some subjects cry out for a big striking close-up. When this dancer stopped to interact with me, I got in close with a portrait lens and captured him full-frame. Buy this photo

Don’t shy away from using non-standard aspect ratios. To include the whole Muito Quente contingent, I moved back from the dancers and captured the whole width of the street, then in post-processing I cropped to keep the full width but remove the unwanted foreground and background portions. Buy this photo

Again, it is helpful to know the participants in advance of the performance. I had been working with the Muito Quente group for several months before the parade, which made it more natural to interact with each of the dancers and make the best images possible. Buy this photo

Always shoot in RAW mode for maximum flexibility. A few words about post-processing: Using Lightroom, I make small adjustments to the color and contrast curves so as to emphasize the subject. A little boost to the vibrance (but not so much as to make the image appear unnatural) and a touch of post-crop vignetting can really make the image pop. Buy this photo

Sometimes it’s okay to break the usual rules of composition. A portrait is not supposed to be cropped at the joints, such as at the knee, but here it works because the dancer’s ornate flowing dress gives a sense of motion and fluidity in the bottom of the frame. Buy this photo

Even in a fast-moving parade, find the opportunities to have your subject stop for a moment and interact with you. The resulting images will convey much more personality that way, even if the personage is fully masked. Buy this photo

We’ll close with this moment of sheer Carnaval magic. It’s such a wonderful feeling when all the elements come together to make a memorable image. This portrait uses most of the techniques we’ve discussed in today’s post–careful composition, bright vibrant colors, a perfect moment, sharp subject with soft background–and conveys a strong sense of personality, culture, and place. And that is what Carnaval, and cultural celebrations in general, are all about! Buy this photo

What are your favorite cultural celebrations? How do you make images that capture their essence? Please share your thoughts here.

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

Revisiting Your Old Friends [Encore Publication]: Take a fresh look at your older images with new postprocessing

In today’s digital photography world, images are made as much in post-processing as they are in the camera. We only get one chance at creating the image in the camera: the choices we make to compose the image, focus, expose, and fire the shutter at just the right moment are behind us the instant the shutter is released. But the choices we make after the fact, using image processing software such as Adobe Lightroom, can be revisited as many times as we wish. Because Lightroom is a non-destructive editor, meaning it keeps the original image file intact and just records the editing choices we make in its catalog, we can return to the image again and again, making slightly or entirely different choices.

When I return from a trip, I try to select the best raw image files and apply some post-processing within a few days. That’s so I don’t agonize endlessly about creative choices, which would severely increase the turnaround time for sharing the images with the world. But increasingly I find it is a good practice to return with a fresh eye to images I made some time ago, applying some different post-processing choices to render the image differently.

There are three scenarios under which I often revisit my older images:

1. - The images are very old and were shot using film in the pre-digitial era. In this scenario, scan the transparency (slide), negative, or print and then apply post-processing to the digital scan.

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Here’s the original scan of a 35mm color slide (transparency) shot during a 1991 trek in Nepal’s Anapurna region. The image is grainy and the background behind the girls’ heads is distracting. I decided to clean it up a bit using Lightroom.

With just a few minutes of tweaking using Lightroom, I was able to crop the image for more dramatic impact, render a true black background, reduce the grainy noise in the shadow areas, and enhance the saturation of the colors. Buy this photo

- The images were shot digitally but were made before I started routinely using image-processing software such as Lightroom. In these cases, I like to apply post-processing to see what artistic options I may have missed in the earlier digital years.

This old Scandinavian stave church was shot as a color image in 2005. It is so high-contrast that it appears nearly monochromatic on the display screen. It’s a striking image, but looking at it today I wondered how much more effective it would be as a true black-and-white photo, so I decided to revisit the image using Lightroom.

Here’s the same digital image file, but converted to black-and-white using Lightroom’s color channel processing module. I boosted the contrast even further and then adjusted each color’s saturation in the black-and-white mix to achieve the exquisite texture of the snow on the ancient building’s roof. Buy this photo

The images are more recent, but I want to make some new creative choices. Here the idea is to render the image in a different way to achieve a different end result. For example, an image I initially processed in color may turn out to make a lovely black-and-white photo. Or perhaps I crop a crowd scene to emphasize just one or a few of the people within it. The choices are nearly limitless.

Reviewing my favorite images from a recent trip to New Orleans, I saw this shot of a characteristic French Quarter balcony and realized it would be even more powerful if certain colors were more saturated.

A brief session in Lightroom’s Develop module was all it took to boost the saturation of the blue and red channels and to adjust the shadow and black point tonalities. The resulting image more closely reproduces the emotional experience I recall when viewing this scene live. Buy this photo

Take a look at some of your older images. Which ones would you like to revisit and give a fresh new look? Do you regularly return to work on your library of existing images? Please share your thoughts here.

Want to read more posts about post-processing your images? Find them all here: Posts on Post-Processing.

The Raw Truth [Encore Publication]: Why you should always shoot in RAW mode

Editor’s Note: Since publishing the original version of this post a couple of years ago, I have made a major change to my workflow and now shoot in RAW format only (i.e., with no JPEG version saved in addition to the RAW version of each image). Shooting RAW+JPEG was a crutch that I used for a couple of years as I transitioned from JPEG to RAW format, but I realized I never use the JPEG files right out of the camera, and saving duplicate JPEG files takes a lot of disk space and time. Please read my update in this recent post: Post on RAW vs. RAW+JPEG. The original post on RAW mode follows:

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For many years after I took the plunge into digital photography, I had my camera set to store image files in the JPEG format only. I now realize that during those years I was throwing away a lot of very valuable information with every photo I made. There are two main reasons for this information loss. First, the JPEG format does not store the detailed data for each pixel in the camera’s sensor but instead does some processing according to your settings and then saves only stripped-down information from each area of your image. Second, the JPEG standard is what’s referred to as a “lossy” format; every time it is opened and resaved, the image loses more detailed data. Once your image data is thrown away, you cannot retrieve it.

By contrast, the RAW file format keeps all the data your camera’s sensor “sees” for every pixel in the image. Yes, RAW files are bigger and take a bit longer to store on your camera’s memory card than JPEG files, and yes, they take up more space on the memory card and on your PC’s hard drive later. For those early years of digital photography, I avoided shooting in RAW mode because I was concerned about having reduced shooting speed and storage space for these monster-sized files. I also was concerned that it would be too much work to shoot in RAW mode because RAW images require post-processing in order to look their best. I now realize that I had been making a big mistake. Shooting in RAW all the time, even when high speed is needed for action shots, ensures that you’ll always have the most image data to work with later. You will be able to crop your images more tightly, print them to larger sizes, and especially important, refine the exposure and color with far more control if they were shot in RAW format rather than in JPEG or other compressed formats.

I now shoot nearly exclusively using my camera’s setting to save files as both RAW and JPEG. Having the JPEG version of each image can be helpful if I want to share the photo right out of the camera. It will look pretty decent without any post-processing because the JPEG file is stored with all of the camera’s settings for white balance, sharpening, and so on. But when I come home from a trip, I always do my post-processing on the best images using RAW files exclusively. Because the RAW format stores so much more information about the color and brightness of every single pixel of the image, I have much more freedom in how I choose to develop the image using my editing software (typically Adobe Lightroom, but occasionally I also use Adobe Photoshop).

Below, I show two files of the same image of my wife and me by a “fairy chimney” rock formation in Cappadocia, Turkey, both processed in exactly same the same way in Lightroom, but the first one was originally saved by the camera as a JPEG while the second was originally saved in RAW mode. While the differences may be subtle at the size and resolution shown in this post, you can still make out more details in the RAW file, especially in areas shrouded in shadow. The color of the sky is deeper. Colors and shapes are rendered with more accuracy. And of course, if we needed to crop or enlarge these images to a much bigger size, the quality of the JPEG file would deteriorate much sooner than would the RAW file.

The JPEG version of this image.

The RAW version of the same image.

I recommend shooting in RAW+JPEG all the time, unless you know you will need the slightly faster shooting speed or extra storage space of JPEG alone. Doing so will give you the best of both worlds: a quick and easy JPEG to share right out of the camera, and the much more detailed data in the RAW file from which to bring out the nuances in color, texture, and exposure later during post-processing. If you use JPEG alone, you’ll be throwing away image information you may wish you had later.

Do you shoot in RAW mode? If so, what do you like about it? If not, why not? Please share your thoughts here.

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

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