Monthly Archives: January 2019

Photography on an overcast day

Posted by enmanscamera on

I have been trying to get outside to wander in the snow the past week with my camera, but everything kept getting in the way. So when Jo told me she had to take her daughter to a doctor appointment I asked her to drop me off at my favourite wandering place, Chase Creek Falls.

I figured that would give me at least an hour to take some photos and I was hoping to be alone in that snowy canyon on the cold, overcast Monday morning.

I like storms and I like the mood one can get in a photograph on an overcast day.

Jo dropped me off along the road and I walked down along the well-worn path through the snow. I picked a good day. From the looks of all the trodden snow, Sunday must have been pretty active.

Stopping along the creek to take a long exposure of a rock glowing golden in the cold water I thought about why I like digital cameras and all the photographic creativity that goes along with modern technology.

I continually meet people that assume someone my age would still be using film. Gosh, I could fill page writing about why I don’t bother photographing anything with a film camera. At that moment as I mounted my camera on my tripod to photograph that glowing gold rock I thought about how hard it used to be to make pictures on overcast days and was glad for the modern equipment I have.

I mounted my 24-70mm lens on my camera and selected an ISO of 1600. Then set my shutterspeed to eight seconds, chose an aperture of f/11 and with the camera’s self-timer activated, I pushed the shutter release.

I refocused on a couple different rocks in the creek besides the golden centre of interest to make sure my depth of field would cover everything in my viewfinder. Then I released the shutter a few time and moved on down the stream.

Sunny days are such a struggle for a photographer wanting to photograph a waterfall.

Sure one can get a pretty, bright landscape, but I like to have contrast in the water when I use a long exposure, so overcast is great. And on this day I wanted to capture the cold winter mood and if I really needed to highlight a particular feature like a rock or log or foliage I’d just do that in later in post.

The Chase Falls is always a perfect subject. All I had to do was poke around in the snow with my tripod to make sure there weren’t any spaces between the rocks or soft spots in the ice as I moved around photographing the falls from different locations, eventually I sat on a bare rock to listen for a while and look at the monochromatic January landscape.

I am fortunate not to have to drive and hike hours to enjoy such a photogenic location. Now I am waiting for more snow so I can collect winter photographs in the garden that hides my home from the road. Today there is a light covering of snow, but it’s been so warm that the snow isn’t clinging to the plants.

Ah, but its January and there’s a few more months of snow to come and more winter photography.

The first Flash-How-To workshop of 2019    

Posted by enmanscamera on

I had planned to write about photography in the snow. After all it’s January here in western Canada and it should be snowing.

There isn’t much snow in my neighbourhood and it isn’t that cold out. So instead I’ll write about what I did on my first weekend on the New Year.

I decided that a good way to begin another year of photography would be to host a Flash (speedlight) workshop to help those photographers that are planning to photograph people in 2019.

While I was preparing for the class I found an article by California based photographer Jason Shelton tilled, “5 Reasons to Use Flash”. He continued, “Flashes are more than just Fill….Reason 1: Flash is Awesome. Reason 2: Flash is Awesome. Reasons 3, 4 and 5: Flash is Awesome.” Although I absolutely agree with Mr. Shelton, I needed a bit more to tell the photographers in attendance than that.

So many of today’s modern photographers have become lazy with the amazing camera technology we have. Without a thought about controlling the light, it’s direction, or the light’s quality. They point their cameras and hope their cameras will make good pictures.

The one-day session I lead was about speed lights (hot shoe type flashes) and how to use them on and off-camera.

This class filled up so quickly that I almost forgot how hard it is to convince photographers that a flash isn’t only for darkened rooms. When I passed handouts about using flash to everyone I watched people begin to read and some even nodded as if agreeing with what they were reading.

I use handouts so participants don’t need to take notes.

For those that didn’t have their own flash I had several lying on the table. There were also flashes with wireless receivers mounted on light-stands topped with umbrellas ready and waiting around the large room.

I began with my thoughts on why I think everyone should have a dedicated TTL flash and how we can balance the light in a room without giving our subjects that “deer in the headlights” look.

I moved on to high-speed sync and after everyone set his or her cameras up we moved outside to give that exciting feature a try. When I tell people their cameras can sync at 1/8000th of a second I always get looks of knowing disbelief because camera and flash manuals usually show a sync speed of 1/250th or slower.

After that, lets call it “awakening”, I gave everyone triggers to place on their cameras and we moved to the light-stands and spent the rest of the day using off-camera flash.

Although I talked a bit about posing, I was mostly interested in showing participants how to position the light.

It’s gratifying to have a group of photographers sit listening to one’s lecture on any subject, that’s great for the ego. But what makes me smile and reinforces my desire to continue is the excitement in the room.

In this case it was when 8 photographers, all competent at using their cameras, suddenly discovered how wonderful and creative using flash instead of natural light is, They may have bought a flash because the salesperson said they’d get a good deal if the purchased it with the camera. Or possibly they worried their camera’s ISO might not go high enough and needed a flash at a friend’s wedding reception.

As I was showing a quick, easy and flattering way to pose an uncomfortable subject I realized that the room was noisy with loud talk. I stepped back while a photograph was taken using an off-camera flash and I listened to the many excited discussions.

I realized I had a room full on converts.