Fort Worth Stockyards

   I love dark, moody photos.  There's something about them that makes me want to spend time with the image and see how many details are hidden inside the shadows.  Can I see the grain of the wood?  How about a persons face?  Maybe there are details in the texture of their clothing that you don't notice at first.  The more time a person will spend viewing a photograph the more successful that image is.

   It was a sunny day at the Ft Worth, Tx Stockyards where there are a lot of older buildings and brick roads and some rail lines and just abuncha stuff to entertain a photographer (I think I invented a new word).  Over and over again I was drawn back to the stables.  Windows way up high and the doors on either end of the stables provided the only available light, so I bumped up my ISO a bit and braced myself along the door jamb.  My intention was to shoot some underexposed photos and let the shadows fall where they may with the hope that the darker areas would bleed off the edges and "trap" the viewers eye inside the image.  Just after I shot a my first photo, a cowboy walked out of a stall...perfect!  Then a horse followed him...more perfect! Then they stopped...even more perfect!  Then, he turned profile to me and faced the horse while he put on his jacket. I don’t know how many levels of perfect there are, but I couldn’t have staged this. 
   I could have shot a couple more exposures and processed it in HDR to create a more balanced image, but that would have defeated my intention.  I wanted the darkness.  I wanted to exaggerate the darkness within the stables and set the mood. Another element is the door at the far end.  Normally I don't like to let any part of my photo blow out to white, but here it helps create a stark outline to the cowboy.  It even allows us to see the rope connecting the cowboy to his horse.  A little pre-visualization and some luck combine for a compelling photograph.  You can never have too much luck in photography.

Iguazu Falls, Argentina

   Along the border of Argentina and Brazil lies Iguazu Falls...one of the largest waterfalls in the world (second to Victoria Fallis in Africa). At more than 1.5 miles long with over 250 separate falls, you can spend all day exploring and still not see everything. I spent the night in the Argentine city of Puerto Iguazu and hopped the first bus to the falls.  By the time I got there the heat was already starting to build, but luckily the humidity was very tolerable...something I'm told isn't normal for the jungle.  A short train ride and a longer hike brought me to this section of the falls where it appeared to stretch to the horizon.
   When photographing nature you don't always get to pick the direction your subject is moving away from the camera, so you have to figure out ways around some problems.    The way the falls are oriented from this viewing platform, along with the vegetation growth at the edge of the falls posed some physical as well as creative problems. First, the creative problem:  The human eye is attracted to the brightest part of any photograph.  In this image, that is the row of waterfalls that stretch from right to left into the photo.  That leaves a whole lot of nothing in the rest of the shot. I was lucky to have the sun in a position to create a rainbow which helps anchor the bottom left of the photo.  Without it, there would have been a lot of visually empty space.   
   The other problem was the fenced off platform I was standing on.  It almost looks like I'm floating in air over the edge of the falls.  Except it wasn't me that was floating, it was the camera.  This takes a little practice, but it's something I learned years ago.  I placed my camera on the tripod, put a level in the hotshoe and set the self-timer.  After that, it was simply a matter of figuring the exposure, extending the tripod horizontially out over the falls and getting lucky with the composition.  The speed of the water going over the falls was a big help too...I didn't have to shoot at a super slow speed to give the water motion the way I like.
   I don't know if any photograph can do these falls justice or relay the feeling of awe one gets from Iguazu, but at least we can try and give the viewer a sense of place.

The Tango

   I don’t photograph people.  I’m not a portrait photographer and have little interest in posing people for a photo.  But sometimes an image is just screaming to be made.  After wandering around the “La Boca” neighborhood of Buenos Aires for a few hours, I was hungry and in need  of a place to sit down, have lunch and relax for a while.  Many restaurants in La Boca have tango dancers out front where you can sit under a canopy, have lunch and watch the show.  However, I wasn’t in the mood for the touristy feel of the main drag so I walked a few blocks out of the square and found a quiet cafe just as rain started to fall.  Taking a seat next to the window, I watched people scramble to get in out of the rain.
   While I was eating lunch, these dancers turned on a quite CD player and started dancing in the aisle from the counter to the front door.  It didn’t take long to notice how beautifully soft the light was as they approached the open door and how quickly it faded as they moved away from it.  A perfect lighting set up.  I grabbed my camera, attached the 24-105 IS lens and started following them back and forth.  Shooting wide open at f4 still meant a slow shutter speed, but with the image stabilizing lens I   knew I could shoot hand held;  I just had to practice panning with them and figure out how to time the shot just right. 
   I knew I wanted to motion-blur the background, but I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with the dancers.  After reviewing some practice shots I realized I had to blur the dancers a little to bring life into the image, but also include some sharp elements to give your eye something the rest upon.  This only occurred when they approached the door and turned around.  I followed and shot, followed and shot and 15-20 images later I finally got what I wanted.  They are just starting their turn.  The light is dramatic yet soft, his face and eyes are sharp and she is blurred with the movement of the turn.  I think this image captures everything tango is about.

Montreal Botanical Gardens

   Montreal is Canada's version of Paris; a beautiful city with an Old World charm.  Like Paris, Montrealers take great pride in their parks, particularly the botanical gardens on the site of the 1976 Summer Olympics.  There you will find Japanese Gardens, Chinese Gardens, Alpine Gardens, desert environments, Greenhouses...the list goes on.

   Photographically, water is like a magnet to me.  Unlike most other elements water gives movement to light.  You can shoot it fast and stop all the action, or you can shoot it slow and let the water carry its' light through the photo.  I love the slower shutter speeds and try to use them with water whenever I can.
  This shot was particularly enjoyable because the waterfall was in the shade and the foreground was in the sun.  This gave me the opportunity to get motion in the falls without blowing out the highlights in the water.  The wind cooperated as well.  It took a little patience but after a few minutes the slight breeze slowed enough to get this image.
   What I think works particularly well in here is how the foreground is back lit by the sun, allowing it to pop and form a border around the waterfall.  This helps create dimensionality and draw your eye into the photo.  Thanks to back lighting, the pine branch that drops down from the center into the upper left stands out from the background.  Without it, the branch would have just blended into the background as a green blob.  The mix of sun and shade also added color contrast, with the waterfall going just a bit cooler than the foreground elements.
   The contrasts of color, light, and movement all add to the success of a photograph and should be considered every time you point your camera at a subject.

A new look at Paris

   Paris is one of my favorite cities.  Now that I've been there a number of times, I'm able to stop photographing just the iconic images and focus more on what makes Paris, Paris.  It's the side streets, the neighborhood within a neighborhood that give a city its' flavor....its' local color.  I'm also starting to shoot in a more relaxed, less formal way; leaving the tripod behind and "freestyling" it a bit more.
   Today's cameras are amazing with their ability to shoot high ISO with incredible noise control.  The accompanying image was shot hand held (800ISO) at the wide end of a 17-35mm lens.  The raw image was processed as a modified HDR image.  Letting the HDR software tone down the highlights and even things out a bit, I then added a darker exposure to bring back the dark area on the inside of the restaurant, behind the rotisserie.
   The goal here was to create enough visual interest to engage the viewer, while at the same time maintaining the drama of the image.