Tips for shooting stills of passerby

This always brings up a point of 'ethical' concern. Do you ask the people whose picture you're taking if it's okay before you shoot? You might lose the moment but you're being up-front with your intentions. You could always shoot first and ask questions later . . . or not at all. . .

So ask yourself if you're a photojournalist, a hobbyist, or concerned with documentary. The aims change the means.

I think taking the photo then showing it to the person (or, in the case of film aficionados, telling about it) is an acceptable compromise. On contract, I always ask first. But sometimes . . . the moment slips past you if you wait and ask.

It's one tough judgement call after another. My two primary concerns in street photography are representation and reputation. I ask myself, Have I fairly represented the subject? His or her feelings? If/when the subject sees the still, will s/he love it? Hate it? At the same time, you may have an artistic responsibility to convey the 'ugly' side of the human condition: poverty, bereavement, prejudice, violence. . . and that's not a side most people want others to see. Heck, most people won't let me take their photo this season due to runny noses. So then it comes down to reputation. Yours. Mine. If you're working in your home city, chances are you'll run into that person again some day. Once you've lost your credibility, it's next to impossible to get it back. You might get a knuckle sandwich.

Okay, okay, the numbered list.

1. As a general rule, ask people before you take their picture. I know that awareness of the photographer and the camera changes the image. You know that, too. You should still ask whenever possible. Some people don't like having their picture Out There. Some people have religious, cultural, and or personal reasons which prohibit images of themselves being taken. Respect that.

2. When you can't ask the subject, ask yourself if the shot is worth it. I mean, if something is so beautiful it strikes your heart like Stendahl, take the freaking picture. No matter what. Just be ready for any eventuality if you're taking a picture of someone's ugly side. Insurance on your camera might be a good idea.

3. Establish rapport. It can be one of the most strenuous challenges in the industry. You will often have to convince people to let you take or keep a picture of them. You can normally tell within the first few seconds of meeting someone whether it's worth your effort or not. Body language speaks volumes. Make eye contact. Smile.

If it's digital, you can offer to show them the picture to assuage their fears. For film, perhaps get a mailing address to send them a print along with a comp card.

4. Be bold, be confident. Well, running up to a stranger and asking if you can take their photo is pretty darned bold. Don't be afraid to make yourself foolish or vulnerable, don't be intimidated by your situation. You are a photographer (even as a proam)! Take pictures! You will face rejection and criticism. Don't take it personally. Don't make it personal.

5. Feel it out. Okay, this part sounds pretty flakey but each city and each neighbourhood marches to the beat of its own drum. It is imperative that you get a "feel" for what you're taking pictures of. Wander around a while, get into your groove, and snap away.

Links

• Street photography tips from the Digital Grin Photography Forum.


• Discussion thread on Flickr, mostly the candid/photog incognito approach.

• Mixed bag of photo tips from National Geographic.


• General commentary on street photography via photo.net.

• A digression into street photography ethics from Stephen Haynes' blog

Photo credits: justFRED.ca/Mae Whyte

Tips for shooting animals (pets)

Hmmmm. Critters.

I think of animals as people. I certainly don't think they're human people, but they're not plant people either.

You have an obligation to make the animal look as beautiful as any other model. Well, maybe you don't. I believe I do. Unless we're going for the mangy look in particular.

Oh, yeah. Tips.

1. If the animal is working with a person, you need to ensure the comfort level of both. Allergies to dogs are bad things for human models to have if there's a dog in the shot. An aversion to males is a bad thing for a dog to have if s/he's posing with a male human (don't laugh - one of our beagles, growing up, had a fierce hate-on for men).
2. Know how long the animal can sit still. It's one thing to shoot a cat in a ray of sunlight taking a nap. It's another entirely to ask a cat to pose whilst tangled up in yarn. Most cats I've met will pose for the camera, but on their own terms. You're on the animal's time table. Most humans I've met have held poses for family portraits for upwards of twenty minutes. Most critters have a max pose time of one minute. Less if they're being held.
3. Flash. Animals are prone to greeneye. Rather than strobing in their face, try it without a flash. Some animals can't abide flash anyway. Set up a bunch of lights around where you are posing the critter for good exposure.
4. And while you're at it, don't add things to the set once the animal's in place. Not only does it cut into the pose time, batting things off tables is Big Kitty Fun. Er, what I mean to say is that animals are easily distracted. . .
5. Wildlife photography is something else again. We'll cover that another day. I'm still miffed about the stiff, tingly fingers resulting from waiting on a crow's leisure today on campus.
6. Overshoot. So maybe you don't mind if it's for your Dogbook. On average and as a general rule, I love 25% of the pictures I take. On average, I love 5% of the pictures I take of animals. So to get two pictures of a human or a tree, I take eight or so. To get two pictures of your puppy, I'd take forty. Dogs especially like to move their heads at the last minute.
7. Study the behaviour of animals. See how they move, see how they respond to your movement. If you can get a feel for their patterns, you will be able to anticipate the next picture. You'll know when they're about to do something not-photogenic.
8. Snakes which constrict, will. Cats with claws will use them (sometimes even through their Soft Paws). Dogs will bark. Mice will do . . . mousey things. I've actually never taken a picture of a mouse. The rats I've taken pictures of were held and held still for less than a minute in the confines of a hand. Expect it, and deal with it as it comes up.
9. Have the owner/human companion and assorted Favourite Things on hand. Making an animal feel comfortable is important for the look of the picture. If the human friend can wave their dog's Favourite Chew Toy up in the air behind the photographer, you might get a shot of a dog begging, standing on his hind legs, or doing some other such wonderful thing. Sometimes 'owners' even teach their pets fancy tricks. Use that.

Tips for sports photography and links

Tips of the Day? SPORTS!

1. Use a quick shutter speed. I mean, really quick. Faster. One two-hundred-fiftieth of a second (1/250) is good for freezing someone who is walking. People playing sports are generally running; I recommend 1/400 or faster.

2. Use focus tracking (continuous focus/AI servo/AF servo). Manual tracking is tricky. Manual focus is more accessible, but you spend a lot of time waiting for someone to come into your depth of field. Many cameras have good autofocus systems for shooting players that aren't moving closer to and further from your shooting position. You might compensate for that disadvantage of regular ol' autofocusing by adjusting to a greater depth of field (say f/5.6-80 to f/22 to switch from a player to the court or field they're playing on), but then you might have dark pictures. Exposure is key; watch your metre.

3. Speaking of, light metering is especially important outdoors. The earth spins as it moves around the sun, and light is a constantly independent variable. Even a field with lights is subject to the fluctuations in a photographer's position and focal length.

4. So you may want a monopod or tripod to support your camera. You might. Tripods are more trouble than they're worth if you're moving around a lot. Bring the one-footer and leave the time-consumer at the studio.

5. Anticipate the action. You've got to at least learn the rules of the game if you're going to shoot sports. Shooting baseball, anticipate the speed of the pitch and the batter's swing. The line drive and the midair catch-over-the-fence. For soccer, anticipate the jump to head the ball, the keeper's dive, PKs, intercepts, etc. This might mean staying for the entire game. That's extra time to get each player in a photo, and your finger on the shutter release when the best photograph is taken.

You need to know the rules so you can catch the reactions as well: players getting red cards, coaches yelling at the ump from the dugout, fans screaming for blood, skating to the penalty box without a stick, getting up on the wrong side of a pass interference, or even losing a rally because the birdie hit the ceiling.

6. You also need to consider your background, specifically what looks good out of focus and what doesn't. You'll find murals, fences, people standing, people sitting, doing things that generally take away from the picture.

7. Lenses. For most sports photography, you'll need a long lens. If you're sitting, standing, or crouching somewhere near the action, a shorter lens is appropriate. A football field requires a telephoto lens. I hear digital SLR cameras are key for multiple shots per second.

8. Don't overcompensate. If one team or player is doing exceptionally well and you're taking a stellar number of captures of them, make up for it a little bit. Watch out you don't end up with 80 pictures of the team with no power hitters watching the strikes go by.

9. Yes, sometimes the spectators are great to shoot. They tell you about the players, laugh, cry, cheer and wear their team colours. It's not illegal to take pictures of people in public places in Canada, but it's unethical not to ask first, in my opinion. If you have commercial aspirations, get a release form or you won't get published. If you take a picture of someone without their foreknowledge, let them know. Simple, right? Injuries are another matter. I don't take pictures of people who are hurt. I miss a lot of great photos. It's possible that people would like to have those photographs. Your call.

Links . . .

If you want to learn about photos and copyright, check this blog by Caroline E. Wright, Esq. and the section of Canada's Copyright Act relevant to photography. Related conversations:

• Feminists discussing "stalker mentality" street photographers on Flickr. See also this piece on the boudoir style and a blurb about the lecherous GWC (guy or girl with camera - derogatory term for amateur trophy photographers). More acronyms and model lingo here. Someday I'll have a non-digital camera and I won't be able to call myself a GWC. Or a proam.
  
• Photographers discussing shooting strangers and street shooting on Photoblogs
• Comprehensive guide on photo law in Canada on AmbientLight. Focus on Ontario includes comparative section on Quebec's Human Rights Code.

For more sports photography, check out:

• Tips from veteran/virtuoso sports photog David Bergman, article by Charlotte K. Lowrie.
• Bob Martin. What a guy.

• Links of stock photo sports sites on freephotogallery.info.

Lots of talking about pictures. Next time, pictures.
One to tide you over?










photo: justFRED.ca/Mae Whyte

Tips for shooting without a flash

At this point, I've done a number of shoots without a flash. This shouldn't ever come up, but we know that some venues don't allow flash photography. You'll find that many performing artists want photography of them "in action" but without a potentially distracting flash.

Here are some tips to help.

1. Set a high ISO setting (400, 800, 1600). This can be problematic because of colour "noise," but most cameras will have a filter or custom function you can set to reduce noise, particularly in long exposures. Some cameras have ISO expansion. Mine goes to 3200.

2. Set a slow shutter speed. This is a problem if the subject(s) are moving quickly. Practice moving the camera with a moving person during the exposure if this is an issue. Anything slower than 1/60 (one sixtieth of a second), I use a tripod for. If you don't have access to a tripod, you can try a few things to reduce camera shake and blurred images.

• stand with your feet shoulder width apart
• brace your back against a wall or your arm against the top of a chair
• hold the camera a little bit away from your face to avoid jarring
• use the timer setting if you have one (or be smooth and careful hitting the shutter button!)
• use the camera's built in setting for reducing shake

3. If you use the automatic settings, most cameras have a night portrait setting that uses a flash. You can set the aperture priority and turn the flash off or detach it.

4. Use a custom white balance or light temperature setting. A lot of indoor and night photography has a yellowish tinge from the various types of lights in use. This can also be corrected in "post-production." I'm only familiar with digital photography, but there are, apparently, dark room techniques to adjust colour temperature as well.

5. Take wide-angle shots. Unless you have to shoot tight, you may want to shoot more of the room than just one person. Bringing light sources into the frame gives you a brighter exposure. It can cause other problems, but we'll deal with those another time.

6. Focusing. It's so hard to do in the dark. Most auto-focus settings (I use Canon's EOS autofocus, usually in one-shot or AI servo) cannot achieve focus in low-light or low-contrast settings. If you can't bring another light source, you'll have to focus manually. You don't really want to use a manual focus setting with a flash unless you've got a pre-flash setting for red-eye.

That's all that comes to mind. Questions?

*ahem*

You found me!

This is the semi-permanent home of Mae's Eye Photography, the blog (web + log). Here's your first post, spiderlings. . .

Tips for shooting WEDDINGS (Dos and Don'ts)
1. Don't wear underwear that rise further than your pants.
2. Don't be embarrassed that you're doing things no one else is allowed to do at a wedding.
3. Don't body check the bridal party to get the perfect capture.
4. Do check out the venues for lighting (metering) beforehand.
5. Do get a schedule.
6. Don't be afraid to be a little bit bossy positioning people for formal photos.
7. Do know where you can plug in your battery charger.
8. Do take extra shots. If you're a digital aficionado, check the captures for blinking, moues, and panty shots.
9. Don't take pictures of people being naughty unless you've been asked to specifically by the bride and groom (or groom and groom, etc.). If you randomly shoot someone dancing sexy with someone else, find out if they're together or just having fun at the wedding before posting to your Facebook or hi5 or Bebo or Photobucket or whatever.
10. Do clear portfolio use with involved parties (that's a given).
11. Do be on time. If possible, have your own wheels and cell phone.
12. Do plan your exits and man frotto set up.
13. Do cut yourself off from photos if you're imbibing at the reception. Are three hundred blurry photos worth that one shot of someone with a garter on their head? (yeah, I think so too).
14. Do clean your sensor and lenses in between settings. Dust, moisture, dirt, and random bits of food and drink will graft themselves to your gear. Clean each piece twice between sets if there's time. ^_^