Monthly Archives: July 2019

A photographer’s holiday at the Shipwreck festival      

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Each year the month of July brings two of my favourite photography events.

The first is the Pritchard Rodeo and the second is the Anacortes Shipwreck Festival. Gosh, what an exciting month July is for photography.

The preceding week had been cool and a bit rainy on the Washington coast, but when we reached the festival my friend Jo and I were met with a warm day that had just enough clouds in the sky to make it comfortable to walk around the 9 block street market filled with 400 interesting booths.

We had arrived in the town of Anacortes at the tip of Fidalgo Island after a pleasant drive the day before the annual Shipwreck Festival.

The locals say that the Shipwreck Festival began thirty-eight years ago when fishermen sold their used gear on the town’s main street. Since then the event has evolved into a giant garage sale/flea market that includes vendors that seem to be from as far away as Mexico.

Last year I wrote, “Whew, what a day. We saw, we touched, we photographed, and we talked to people from 9AM to 3PM. Then we stepped into a popular Commercial Avenue Alehouse called the Brown Lantern for a late lunch and I gladly got to rest my tired legs. I am sure Jo will recommend the crab and corn chowder she ate and I agree that both my food and the two beers I drank were the refuelling I needed.”

Well I can write that again this year, we again got to see, touch and even purchase unusual treasures, and I had a fun time photographing people on the crowded street.

Jo got to have that bowl of the crab & corn chowder she had been dreaming about since last July and I enjoyed two very dark beers while I rested my old legs. Then just as last year we were off for another look around and a few more pictures of the crowded street of happy bargain hunters.

I do like the treasure shopping as much as anyone, but watching the people and photographing everything on that island is what brings me back each year.

I have tried different cameras. When I first came in mid-1990s I used a Nikon F3 film camera. Then when digital arrived I used several different DSLRs until last year when I changed to a tiny Nikon 1 mirrorless.

What I like about the (recently discontinued) little interchangeable lens camera is it’s small size and quick focusing. I carry it in an old army bag that allows me to pull it out fast for street photos without getting attention from those around me.

The Nikon 1 doesn’t have the large higher quality sensors of the big and more expensive mirrorless cameras like the Fuji or Sony, but like any other tool that one might select for a specific job the little Nikon is great for the internet or even 8X10 prints.

This was the kind of vacation trip that I like, wandering the Shipwreck festival looking for treasures, (I bought a handmade flit blade knife) doing photography on the crowded avenue, meeting new people and getting to eat fresh seafood at local restaurants. All less than a day’s drive to from the very different environment where I live.

Photographing the 2019 Pritchard Rodeo  

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Jo and I were comfortably positioned along the rail at 1PM ready for the first bronco-riding event. I had my camera set at ISO400 so I could get reasonable depth of field and be able to use the Shutter Priority Mode with a 1/500th of a second to stop the action.

Both of us were using 70-200mm lenses. There are longer focal lengths available and I was asked this week if I ever tried my 150-600mm. I haven’t used that lens at a rodeo, but I did shoot some years ago with a 150-500. It was pretty good and brought the action so darned close. But the rodeo grounds aren’t that big and I like the 70-200mm. It’s light, not that big, handholdable and delivers great quality.

I have mentioned before that I like photographing any kind of action and especially the rodeo that is only a few minutes drive from my home in Pritchard. I always look forward to standing there along side other photographers that, like me, enjoy capturing the fast moving test of wills between animals and riders. Photographing any action filled competition is fun and there’s always lots of action at a rodeo.

My favourite events are the bronc and bull riders. I like the fast moving explosive action that moves uncontrollably across the arena.

I always try to get that first moment, especially with the bull riders. There is so much happening when the gate is opened and bull, rider, and all the faces behind those two show the excitement. I continue to follow the activity to capture that perfect moment that shows the athletic prowess of the rider. However, I must admit my favourite photos are those that show the rider getting thrown through the air. Sure I feel for them and never like it when someone looses or gets hurt, but it’s that explosive moment when everything in moving at it’s own speed, in its own direction, that tells the exciting and dangerous story for me.

This hometown rodeo is darned convenient and really accessible without restrictions placed on ringside photographers, and it’s easy for participants to get quality photographs of themselves that can be made into wall prints just by asking any one of the many people with a camera standing along the rail.

For those new to rodeos or even photographing action, put a rodeo on your bucket list to attend, it’s a friendly and an easy place to practice and experiment.

Photographing a summer garden   

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This year has been a good year for my garden. There has been lots of heat and just the right amount of rain since the beginning of June. I have sat on my porch enjoying the changes as plants bloomed, then withered, while others renewed the colour with their new blooms.

It is the middle of July here in British Columbia and last evening I watched the light drop with cooling clouds moving in making it perfect to wander the garden for some photographs of the mid summer blooms.

I mounted my old manual focus 200mm macro lens on my camera and placed my big 800w flash on a c-stand and started taking pictures.

This time of the year I see so many point-and-shoot flower photos by photographers that are so excited with the beauty around them that they forget about building the photograph and just, well…point and shoot.

Their close-up snap shots might even be sharp if they remembered that the closer the lens is to the subject the less the depth of field and selected a small aperture. However, in most cases the final images lack interesting light and the background detracts from their chosen subject because it’s the same exposure or sometimes brighter.

I always use flash. A flash allows me to underexpose the background and any other features that I don’t think are important. I know I unapologetically keep harping on using flash. That’s because flash will make one’s subject, whether it’s a flower, person or pretty much anything, even in the dullest environment look better.I also select “high speed flash sync” on my camera (most modern cameras have that) so I can use a fast shutter speed if there is a slight breeze.

Photographers use flash to create highlights and shadow with pleasing results when they do portraits of people in their studio, but seem forget to use flash when making portraits of flowers.

An off-camera flash allows me to control the light’s direction and moving a light stand with a flash mounted on it slows me down and makes me think about the portrait.

The time of day doesn’t matter and the brightness of the environment is just ambient light that, inside or outside, is easily controlled when one uses flash. And on that overcast afternoon light adding flash made it easy for me to underexpose the background.

I’ll sum up by saying that I like photographing my garden. The garden is a soothing place and even when something has stressed me it’s calming there and creating photos allows me to time to sort though anything that has been bothering me. Or like the day I am writing about, lets me have fun discovering and photographing the remarkable world around me.