Photos for Food

Nature photography must be one of the easiest professions to enter. No qualifications are required, there are no examinations to pass, and no regulatory body exists to vet entrants. The question you might like to ask someone bragging of their professional status, however, is “how long?” While becoming a professional nature photographer is simple, remaining one is a different matter. Getting a few pictures published is not hard; sustaining the necessary level of income week after week, year after year is altogether more testing. Almost 10 years into my career, I’d like to share some of the things I’ve learned about the business along the way. And as we will see, in spite of the huge proliferation of people taking great pictures, there remain plenty of opportunities for new entrants with particular abilities.

Professional stock photography is based on the principle of intellectual property rights. Were it not the case that users generally recognise the right of the photographer to be recompensed for their creative work and don¹t exploit it freely, we would not be in business. That may sound rather obvious, but when you consider how frequently the rights of musicians are infringed, on the World Wide Web and elsewhere, we should never take the status quo for granted. As a first business priority, always be ready to defend your intellectual rights. Licensing rights are all we have to sell; a piece of film is in itself worth very little.

The natural tendency when figuring out a new career is to look at those who appear to be successful, find out the route they’ve taken, then try to emulate that. In nature photography, however, where there are as many different routes and definitions of success as there are established professionals, this approach is the surest way to fail. This is a business where individuality is valued highly. Under no illusion are qualifications or professional distinctions going to cut any ice with editors. While established photographers find it easier to have their work seen, superior pictures from an unknown photographer on the same light table will normally be selected ahead of those from a “name”.

It helps a lot at the outset to be clear about your career goals. You don’t need to publish more work than everyone else to have a good living, but equally, don’t expect ever to be able to switch off from wondering where new business will come from. If you want to furnish a lavish material lifestyle, then this is probably not the career for you, and if profit for you is purely a financial matter, then you may sometimes be disappointed by the bottom line. While undoubtedly a business, nature photography has a lot in common with vocational professions; life and work are integrated and you’ve got to decide how to allocate time to business and family. Both demand much more than can given and everyone concerned needs to be comfortable with the self-absorption of the creative spirit. The upside is the flexibility of working hours (once you’ve learned to stop now and again) and the different life perspective and experience that this type of work brings to those near it.

While a value can and should be attached to quality field time - experiences that others have to spend disposable income on acquiring - the need to fund the business and its growth (in this sense, a benign model in which the photographer adds to his stock of experiences and images) is ever present. I learned during my farming days that it was always better to spend an afternoon trying to figure out ways to make more money than trying to save on what I was already spending. Nevertheless, you can load the dice in your favour by keeping your overheads low. If family permits, live in an inexpensive part of the country or even consider moving abroad. If you plan to do most of your work in the country you live, locate yourself in the richest biological area. It sounds like common sense, but there are more than a few photographers servicing large mortgages in suburbia.

Foreign travel is enticing and will often yield pictures of subjects more in demand than domestic ones but don’t lose sight of the fact that it is not turnover, but actual profit that counts. If it is questionable, in order to make £70 000 pounds of income you need to spend £65 000, then the effort is worthwhile. A low input, low output model is more appropriate at the start of a business; the servant with two talents probably worried a lot less than the one with three and still ended up with the same return on capital. One significant capital expense which previous generations of photographers didn’t have to budget for was a computer system to allow the storage and distribution of their images. The shift to on-line image searching has been dramatic and increasingly, high- resolution files are finding their way down broadband lines too. Without these facilities, much of your potential customer base is going to pass you by in future.

You may wonder, in view of the large number of well-tooled, well traveled and often well financed photographers also trying to establish themselves as professionals, if the competition is just too stiff to make your own success likely. My own feeling is that the competition argument is over-stated. Yes, of course it is harder to get established than it used to be - and in what creative field is that not the case? Just consider how homogenous most of that photography is. It is not to say that it is not good photography, it is just that it is not necessarily distinctive in its style or content. And that’s simply because most of your potential competitors tend to follow the established routes to celebrity species and locations. There is no less demand than there ever was for original talent with a fresh view of the world and new stories to tell. Following your own, distinctive route will not lead to short term financial success but it can sow the seeds for a more enduring career, if you stick with it.

Like other businesses, suppliers able to add value to their raw material are at a competitive advantage. It is no longer enough simply to shoot great pictures and supply them to a few stock libraries. Lots of other people can do that. Value is added when the photos form part of a package - concept, words and pictures - and is presented effectively to as many potential users as possible, either over the web or as ink jet promotions. Writing has become a central part of my own business (we published almost 140,000 words, including a 45,000 word book, between 2000 and 2002 alone), giving a context to the photography and, in my case, allowing a much greater percentage of my keepers to find their way into print than they would as stock. The appetite for stories, the need for narrative, is something innate in people and in a purely business sense, story telling is a skill worth developing.

Other photographers supplement their income by giving seminars and leading workshops. I used to do this as well, but realised that I wanted to be a writer and photographer rather than a teacher and stopped. The same information can be much more widely disseminated in magazine articles. On reflection, I believe now that workshops are something best reserved for the end of a career when a lifetime’s experience can be drawn upon. Don¹t say you were thinking of retiring on a pension! It seems quite common for photographers to bank on a continuing income from stock and royalties to see them through old age having used potential pension contributions to fund a full and interesting life when they were best able to take advantage of it.



Text Copyright Niall Benvie All rights reserved.

The Art of Communicating with Light

Cameras record the light falling on a subject in a mechanical and objective manner. Humans, on the other hand, ‘see’ objects with a subjective bias. Indeed, our survival is hinged on our emotional reaction to the objects in our environment. When we stumble upon a grizzly bear at close range we don’t immediately notice the sun highlighting the silver-tipped fur on its back. We don’t register the sparkling of the wet drool moistening its left upper canine. Indeed, we don’t even notice that our white tee shirt has created a wonderfully bright sheen to the bear’s shaded eyes. These are the things that an experienced photographer might marvel at even while racing back to the safety of his/her car. To develop as a strong photographer you must learn to see things less as ‘subjects’ and more as objects that reflect light.

Learning to see is about understanding light, and how light affects the look of an object. The same object photographed under different kinds of light can take on hugely different looks (see Photos 1a and 1b for an example). Talented photographers use their understanding of light to enhance the viewer’s emotional response to a subject. In portraiture, for example, men are often photographed with strong, direct side lighting that enhances facial surface texture. Wrinkles, whiskers, chin clefts, and jaw lines become more pronounced with direct side lighting which amplifies facial features that most of us associate with rugged masculinity. In contrast, when your subject is a woman you may want to portray her as ‘soft’ and feminine. This is accomplished by using diffuse, front lighting that tends to flatten and hide skin imperfections and also emphasizes colour and tone so that the women’s eyes and lips are enhanced.

Nature photographers can use the same lighting techniques that famous portrait photographers such as Karsh used create his emotion filled photos. Whereas portrait artists can move and vary their lights to suit the subject, the nature photographer must wait until the ‘right’ light comes along. Let’s take a closer look at the language of light and how it affects the look of the natural environment.

The Language of Light

There are the three main categories of light on any landscape;

Light Quality – Is the light soft (e.g. overcast), or harsh (e.g. midday sunshine)?
Light Direction – Where is the light coming from? Is it coming from the side of the subject, the front, or the back of the subject?
Light Temperature – What is the colour (or temperature) of the light. Is it yellow (‘warm’) sunrise light, blue (‘cool’) light at dusk, or the ‘neutral’ light of mid-day?
Light Quality

Light quality can be divided into two categories; diffused and specular light.

On overcast days, the light from the sun is diffused through the clouds. This produces a broad light source that wraps around objects and eliminates shadows. Diffused light occurs at other times as well; at dawn and dusk before the sun lights the landscape, in the shade on sunny days, or in fog.

Digital sensors and film love diffused light because it is low contrast (the range of brightness between light tones and dark tones is compressed) and all tones can be easily recorded. Many photographers prefer diffused light because subjects are evenly lit, and are easy to expose properly. Intimate nature scenes, macro photography subjects, wildlife portraits, flowers, waterfalls, people portraits, and forest scenes often look their best when photographed under diffused light (Photos 2 and 4).

Specular light is produced from a bright, point source of light (in nature that is the sun) that results in high contrast. Shadows are strongly defined and the range of brightness between light and dark tones in the scene is extreme, often beyond what film or digital sensors can accurately record. The skilled photographer must understand how the camera records specular light. In doing so, the photographer learns to use high contrast light and the limited tonal reproduction of film and digital sensors to his or her advantage, to create scenes that are stark and graphic, or they learn to manipulate the light in a scene to reduce the contrast to levels that film and sensors can record.

Although specular light is the most difficult to work with and to expose properly, it is also the light with the most drama, the light that gives power to the grand vista. Tame the wild beast that is specular light and you will have a potent tool for dramatic expression (Photo 3).

Light Direction

Understanding the direction of the light (from in front of, from behind, or from the side of the subject) may seem elementary and intuitive but what many novices do not understand is that light direction has a powerful affect on how the subject looks.

Front Light

When you shoot with the sun behind you that is called front lighting. Use it whenever the scene has strong tone or colour. For example, a pink flower in a green field would look great lit from the front as would yellow aspen leaves against a blue sky. Generally, front lighting works well whenever the subject has are varied tones and color (see Photos 4 and 5).

Side light

Side lighting emphasizes texture. Any subject that has strong texture will look better when photographed in sidelight. Mountains, for example, with their plunging crevasses, hanging glaciers, rocky pinnacles, and boulder strewn avalanche slopes are strongly textured landscapes and they frequently look best when thrown into three-dimensional relief through the use of side lighting. If you want to know where the strongest sidelight is in a scene, face the sun, and then turn 90 degrees away from it. Chances are any strongly textured scene (mountains, sand dunes, a rocky lakeshore) that you see in front of you will look pretty nice if you photograph it from this angle. If you want to reduce haze in the scene, darken the blue sky, or saturate the colours, try using a polarizing filter. Polarizers work best when the light source is at a 90-degree angle to the subject; perfect for side-lit scenics (Photo 6).

Back Light

Backlighting emphasizes shape and form. The most extreme form of backlighting is a silhouette in which the subject shows no colour, detail, or texture, just shape. Backlit objects that are translucent (leaves, clouds, feathers, fur, ice) will appear almost mystical, emanating their own luminosity. For me, backlighting has the greatest mood and magic of all light directions because it is so abstract and dramatic. But, and this is an important but, backlit scenes are by far the most difficult to properly expose. Even so, when you succeed the images can be powerful (Photos 7 and 8).

Light Temperature

Over the course of a day the colour of light changes dramatically. At sunrise and sunset, the light has a strong orange-yellow colour while at dusk it is blue. Mid-day light appears ‘neutral’ and has no obvious colour cast.

Daylight film is designed to produce neutral colors in mid-day light. Often, however, the colour in a scene is far from neutral. In this case, our brains make adjustments for the light and ‘corrects’ the colour cast. Unfortunately, film does not. Most novice photographers are surprised to discover that shadows are blue, not gray, as our eyes perceive them. One of the skills required by photographers is the ability to see colour casts the same as film does and to use these colours to affect the mood of the photo.

With digital cameras there is "auto white balance," where the camera adjusts the white balance of the scene to neutral just the way our eyes do. This is useful if we want neutral colours (in portraits, or product shots for example) but nature is full of mood and colour is a key component in translating mood into our photos. For this reason, I recommend that digital cameras be set to "daylight" white balance to take advantage of the changing colour and mood of light.

Putting it all Together

Our job as photographers is to recognize how light shapes our subjects and to use the language of light to communicate with our viewers. When confronted with a scene, our first reaction should not be to immediately pull out our camera. Instead we should first imagine how the scene in front of us might look under various types of light. For example, we discover a location in the mountains with a pristine alpine lake surrounded by soaring craggy peaks. How should we photograph this scene? We could come back when the sun is low on the horizon skimming the rugged peaks with strong warm sidelight and emphasizing texture. Or maybe, backlighting might be more appealing with the peaks silhouetted against a twilight sky and reflected in the calm of the lake. Or, how about using front light in which we could capture the first rays of the morning sun, painting the peaks orange to contrast with the deep blue colour of the shaded lake in the foreground. Photo 9a shows a mountain lake backlit by mid-morning sun. Photo 9b shows the same scene in mid-afternoon, and Photo 9c shows how the scene looks at sunset as the peaks are frontlit by the warm setting sun. Not only can we see how the lighting changes over the day, but also how the mood changes due to changes in light direction and colour.

The more understanding we have of the language of light, the more freedom we have to convey a specific subject in exactly the manner we want. We can use light to communicate our moods, our impressions, and our view of the subject at hand. We move from being documentary photographers, to expressionary image-makers (sounds impressive, eh?). Therein lies the power of photography as a vehicle of expression, not just a tool of documentation and to get there one must know the language of light.


Text and photography copyright Darwin Wiggett. All rights reserved.

Available Light Close-Ups

The way in which a close-up is taken can range from a simple grabbed hand-held shot of a dew drop on a blade of grass to setting up the camera on a tripod and using a diffuser as well as a reflector to enhance the available light for a static subject.

I can still recall the thrill of focusing my first macro lens at close range and seeing details in a flower I had not noticed with the naked eye. From this moment I have always been on the lookout for striking close-ups. Even when I am going on a wildlife shoot, I never fail to pack a macro lens, because if the main target species fails to turn up, I can always find a macro shot worth-taking - whether it be backlit leaves, fallen seeds or textured rock.

Getting in Close

There are several ways of focusing at close range. Most simply, attaching a close-up lens to the front of a prime lens does the same job as reading glasses for a long-sighted person. Some short tele zoom lenses have a macro mode but this does not provide the flexibility and extensive magnification range available with a true macro lens. This is an essential tool for anyone who wants to concentrate on close-up subjects. Depending on the focal length (50 or 60mm, 90 or 105mm, and 200mm) a macro lens will provide a life-size or half-life-size image on film or a digital sensor. On D-SLR cameras the magnification remains the same, but the actual area of the image may be smaller compared to 35mm film if the sensor is smaller than full-frame.

There is no question that a longer focal length such as 90mm or 105mm will be most useful. The greater working distance not only gives a higher success rate when stalking active subjects such as insects, frogs, or lizards before they fly, hop, or crawl out of the frame, but also provides more space for holding a reflector or a flash between the camera and the subject.

The 105mm micro-Nikkor is my favourite macro lens, but I also use the 70-180mm macro zoom lens - especially for precise framing of insects, amphibians, and reptiles without the risk of disturbing them by moving in closer.

Lighting

The success or failure of a landscape picture is dependent on weather conditions with some control via filtration of light; whereas with close-ups the lighting can be controlled and changed by the photographer to suit the subject. Indeed the structure of the subject should convey how to light it.

Translucent petals or leaves look great backlit, whereas a textured surface will be highlighted by extreme side- (known as grazed-) lighting. Natural light can be changed in various ways. For instance if a bright sun casts harsh shadows which do not enhance the composition, they can be softened by using a diffuser such as a Photoflex® Lite Disc™. On the other hand, on overcast days, dull light can be perked up using a Phototoflex® silver / gold reflector. Where rays of light pierce the canopy to spotlight a forest floor it is possible to deflect the sun onto a flower or fungus in the shade and thereby gain a stop more light.

The inside of flowers that naturally hang down such as some lilies and fritillaries, can never be lit directly by the sun, and are a prime case for pushing light inside by using a reflector. A useful makeshift reflector is a piece of aluminum cooking foil wrapped around a piece of cardboard. It is also possible to use both a diffuser (as a mini cloud to diffuse direct sunlight) held between the sun and the subject and a reflector below it to add a soft light. Even using the camera on a tripod, without a willing assistant to hold the diffuser or reflectors, a useful third arm is the flexible Wimberley Plamp (short for Plant Clamp) which can be clamped onto a tripod leg or a wooden pole pushed into soft ground.

Exposure

Even though it is now possible to check the exposure on a digital camera, this takes time and may mean a dramatic backlit shot is lost as the sun moves past a gap in an overhead canopy. It is far better to perfect the metering of tricky subjects with confidence.

If an automated matrix reading is taken of a flower growing amongst pale limestone rocks or on snow-covered ground it will give a false high reading which will underexpose the shot. Conversely, dark red flowers or black rocks metered this way will result in an overexposed shot. One solution is to use an incident light meter. However, I prefer to select either green grass or matte green (not shiny or grey / green) leaves as an average tone lit in the same way as a bright or dark subject to manually spot-meter using the camera.

In overcast, windy conditions, exposures for close-ups are often a compromise. A moving subject will require a fast shutter speed to freeze the movement, which will dictate a wide aperture with an ISO of 100-160. A slow shutter speed can, however, be an effective way of taking dripping water.

Poor light in calm weather or inside a forest is not a problem, providing a tripod is used. Even so, to ensure there is no risk of movement from camera shake, it is advisable to lock up the mirror and use a remote release.

Camera Angles

The choice of camera angle can help to make an arresting close-up. Dramatic close-ups can be taken using a low camera angle to get a worm's eye view. In this case, a right-angled viewfinder will save having to lie prone on the ground to reach the viewfinder. Overhead views can be taken of mosses amongst fallen leaves or plants that float on water. To maximize the depth of field, make sure the film or sensor plane is parallel with flat ground or the water surface. While a butterfly feeding head-on is dramatic, if you want the whole body in focus it is better to opt for a side view of the folded wings. Try head-on shots of animals with conspicuous eyes for impact or tight crops of animal skins to highlight texture, pattern or abstract forms.

Depth-of-Field control

To fully appreciate how the depth-of-field can be controlled and used to your advantage, it is preferable to abandon all automated programs and revert to setting both the shutter speed and aperture manually. If your camera has no manual setting, then use aperture priority.

Using a tripod, focus the camera on a three-dimensional flower. Simply for the purpose of visually appreciating how depth-of-field is controlled by the aperture size, select f/11 and stop down the lens using the depth-of-field preview function. Look through the lens, whilst maintaining the preview, slowly open up the aperture to f/8, then f/5.6 and f/4. As the aperture is opened more light passes through the iris diaphragm and so the subject is seen more clearly. At the same time, the extent to which the flower appears in focus becomes reduced. By changing the aperture settings back and forth a feel of the relationship between aperture size and depth-of-field will be gained.

Depth-of-field also decreases as magnification increases. Therefore, to gain maximum depth-of-field (for a three-dimensional ID shot) use a small aperture such as f/16 or even f/22 and focus behind the front of the flower (since the focus is increased on either side of the plane in which the lens is focused).

On the other hand, some shots may work better, or look more dramatic, by opening up the aperture to reduce the depth-of-field and thereby blurring the background so the subject ‘pops’.

The choice of how to take a close up is a matter of individual style and the way in which an image is to be used. Clearly, an ID shot needs to be as sharp as possible and the subject framed to include the essential characteristics, whereas a shot taken specifically for use as a greetings card or a fine-art print may have a more aesthetic appeal with minimal focus so that the colours blend together in a fluid kaleidoscope that is restful to the eye.



Text copyright © Heather Angel. All rights reserved.

MyPlace Photo Competition

Description:
MyPlace aims to celebrate photography, culture and heritage, and welcomes all those who have a passion for taking photos of splendour and individuality. MyPlace has been launched in the UK and Ireland as a result of the successful 'Our place - The World's Heritage' project where professional photographers armed with Lumix Cameras have gone all over the world to shoot UNESCO World Heritage sites.

MyPlace allows you to upload photos of your very special place and share with members of the community why this place is special to you. There are regular prizes to be won for the best photos voted by YOU, the MyPlace community, the ultimate prize being a trip to China's most treasured World Heritage sites. A pro photographer will pick the best photos every month and comment on them.

Closing Date: 31/July/2008

Website: www.my-place.tv

Email: myplace@eu.panasonic.com

The Fastest Focus

No matter if you're manually focusing, relying on autofocus, have AFS or Ultrasonic, having the fastest focus depends on YOU! The best shooters today rely on autofocus but they honed their speed back in the good ol’ days of manual focus. The same techniques they used with manual focus lenses back then they now incorporate with the autofocus lenses they use today. You can use these same techniques so you have the fastest focus.

First and foremost is pre-focusing. This is simply done but few do it. Pre-focusing simply means that you focus on an object, any object, that you think is the same physical distance from the camera to the subject prior to having to shoot. This was done in manual focus days so that with only a light touch of the focusing ring the subject would snap into focus. This same technique works killer with AF lenses because with a light touch of the shutter release, the lens grabs on and focuses on the subject. This really simple concept makes a world of difference in capturing a sharp image, especially when shooting action.

Next, proper hand holding and long lens techniques are essential. These techniques not only assure a sharp image by the lack of movement of the film plane, but also assure the AF sensor stays locked onto the subject. I receive many emails from folks stating their camera's AF system keeps searching. So far, the problem has always been pilot error, not maintaining the AF sensor on the subject.

Finally, panning properly in conjunction with pre-focusing, proper hand holding or long lens technique speeds up focusing. A smooth pan permits the AF system to lock on to the subject faster. Proper panning technique permits the system to stay locked on. And in conjunction with all of these, good contrast makes the AF system work at its fastest along with fresh batteries (in the camera and in the mind).

The weakest link in photography is still the person behind the camera. Refine and improve on that, and you will have no only the fastest focus, but the best images and the most fun!



Text Copyright Moose Peterson All Rights Reserved.

Garden Photographer of the Year 2008

Garden Photographer of the Year 2008
Deadline: January 31, 2008

Calling all “budding” garden photographers. Are you the next Garden Photographer of The Year? With thousands of pounds worth of cash and prizes up for grabs, this is a unique opportunity for entrants to have their photographs exhibited for the four summer months of 2008, alongside some of the world’s most talented photographers in the gardening and landscape world. Several hundred thousand visitors will see the top one hundred pictures at a purpose-built outdoor exhibition at The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London.

We are now calling for entries in the following categories;
My Garden
Garden Views
Plant Portrait
Life in the Garden
Trees

Amateur and professional photographers are encouraged to enter single images or themed portfolios and there will be prizes to suit both types of entry. There will be a new special award for Young Garden Photographer of The Year supported by Chris Collins, the BBC Blue Peter Gardener. Entries for this category are welcomed from young photographers under the age of 16 and are free.

A panel of high-profile industry and art professionals will judge the competition and the winning images will be displayed from May to September 2008.

Previous competition judge Chris Beardshaw - television presenter and garden designer, says: “Our plants and gardens are delightfully dynamic and effervescent - subtly and constantly morphing. So much can be missed at the blink of an eye but, thankfully, it is precisely that precious moment that the camera captures for eternity.”

http://www.gpoty.org/

Smithsonian magazine 5th Annual Photo Contest

Smithsonian magazine 5th Annual Photo Contest
Deadline: January 3, 2008

Contestants can enter photographs in five categories, The Natural World, Americana, Altered Images, Travel and People, that represent subjects of special interest to the magazine. Fifty finalists will be selected, ten for each of the five categories. Smithsonian will notify the 50 finalists by March 31, 2008. From these 50 finalists, five category winners and a grand prize winner will be selected. The entries of all winners and finalists will be published on the magazine’s Web site on April 1, 2008. At that time, readers can vote online for one readers’ choice winner. The winning entries and select finalists will be published in the print edition of Smithsonian magazine during summer 2008.

Category winners will be awarded $500. The readers’ choice winner will be awarded $500. The grand prize winner will receive a four-day, three-night Smithsonian Journeys Grand Canyon Weekend Adventure for two from July 11-14, 2008, or the cash equivalent.

The Smithsonian magazine photo contest is open to amateur photographers ages 18 and over. Photographers who earn more than half of their income taking photographs are not eligible. Submitted photographs must have been taken within the past three years (since January 1, 2005)

Deadline: All entries must be uploaded by 2pm Eastern Time, Thursday, January 03, 2008.

http://photocontest.smithsonianmag.com/v5/