Old & Spooky

Well yes...that could be me, but the old and spooky I'm referring to is the kind of stuff we feel compelled to photograph when we see it. If you actively take photographs and don't feel that pull to the dark and mysterious, I'd feel pretty confident in making the non-clinical assessment that there's something seriously wrong with you and professional help is called for.



I'm not saying I understand the compulsion to snap off twenty or thirty shots of a rusty piece of metal lying in a muddy puddle, or a stack of tires that long ago gave up the ability to hold air, just that it's nearly impossible for me and many others to pass by a scene like that without becoming nearly faint with excitement and the need to take...many...photos. This would also suggest the need for professional help, but the very fact that you may have thousands of dollars in lenses and camera bodies hanging from your body to do this could be strong evidence that you're beyond help already.



Rusted and abandoned cars and trucks are also a great attraction for the old and spooky scrapbook, and the older, the better. Broken headlights, rusted bumpers, torn upholstery, dented fenders and suspicious stains...what's not to love in a scenario like that? But the ultimate...the creme de la creme of old, spooky, and must be photographed, is the abandoned structure.



Be it a home, an old factory or warehouse, or possibly an old abandoned former resort, these are the locations that are Xanadu to anyone with a camera. (Except those of you mentioned previously, who, if their pulse hasn't quickened by the mere mention of abandoned buildings may be further gone that hinted at and would best be served by keeping your cell phone handy and having 911 on your speed dial, 'cause you are really close to total meltdown territory.)



Fact also is, in today's society, there appears to be more and more of these kinds of "photo ops" popping up on the landscape. It's apparently easier and more economical to walk away and wash one's hands of something that has become a deficit, rather than think of the impact it may have on the community as a whole. That's about as close to getting on a soapbox for this topic as I'll allow, other than to say if you know of an abandoned property, odds are it's a dangerous place to explore on your own, and possibly even illegal. Here are a couple of sites I've noticed that are seriously into the old, spooky vibe. Undercity is a site chock full of photos of old missile silos, abandoned freight tunnels, subway tunnels, insane asylums and hospitals. Lots of links to other sites, too. Another great site is from photographer Matthew Murray, who I met recently at a showing of some of his work in Lancaster, PA. His photos are stunning and his philosophy about these sites and what he's doing is well worth the read. Abandoned America is his site, and he recently began keeping updates and info at his MySpace account. Also worth a look is Lost America, a site dedicated to night photography of the abandoned west.



Follow the links available in all these sites and you'll spend hours in dirt, grime, and rust bliss. You may also end up having nightmares because the photos are spooky, but cowboy up...you're a photographer, right?

Simple Minded

There's a lot to be said for not looking for the big, breath-taking, stunning, rock-em-sock-em photo, and concentrating on the small and simple things that we too often overlook. I think it's a matter of not heading out to shoot with big expectations.



The pictures are there...every day...everywhere, and the idea should be to take your time and find what you can that day. A pile of bricks sitting against a brick wall may be something you pass every day without a glance because it's...well...too simple a shot. But there's texture and color and form there. You can capture it, record it, and pique someone's interest with it.



I'm particularly fond of rooftops and rooflines as they appear against the sky. The simple lines can be so graceful and captivating, and the geometry of it all so complex and abstract at the same time. I'm also very big on shadows, about as simple a subject as there is, but with the ability to add depth and gravity to a capture.



In many ways, a simple picture can create an enormous amount of interest and thought in the viewer. What am I looking at here? Is there a deeper meaning? Clear your mind grasshopper, and look for the simple things right there in front of you.

Pics And The City

You can take the boy out of the city, but you can't take the city out of the boy. I come from a fairly large city (New York), and relocated many years ago to the relatively small and quiet (comparatively speaking), area of Lancaster County in Central Pennsylvania. I don't miss the craziness and traffic of New York, but there's no denying that there's a vibe and constantly changing look generated by almost any city that makes photo forays into that environment a must for me. City shooting generally offers a wide range of locations that have their own unique "flavor", from ethnic neighborhoods and eateries, to historic attractions, to office workers, to city dwellers, to street artists and musicians, to the poor and needy, to churches, to amusements centers. A city will cover that whole spectrum...sometimes in the space of only a few blocks.



There's also a risk in some cities of becoming a crime statistic as you walk around wide-eyed with possibly thousands of dollars of shiny cameras and lenses temptingly close by. My advice? Ditch the wide eyes. Part-an important part-of city living and survival is attitude and "street smarts.". You don't necessarily or particularly need an attitude, just the ability to look like you belong and you're not a country bumpkin wandering around looking at all the tall buildings. This bleeds in to the area of "street smarts" that dictate you don't go into a strange, or unknown, or even possibly dangerous section of the city without some thought and a game plan.



You should always be aware of what's going on around you. That not only helps with picture taking, but with safety to your equipment and your body. Don't leave your camera bag at your feet then wander off a few feet, then a few more to take an interesting shot. You may notice that cities have pawn shops. You may also notice gear very similar to yours in the windows of those shops. Put two and two together and keep your gear in your grasp.



While it's important to know what's going on, that doesn't mean nervously looking around. That can mark you as a potential victim. Attitude. You belong there, you're confident, you can handle yourself. Most importantly, if you sense you're in a dangerous spot...get out of there. Look for a location where there are a lot of people, have a plan in mind if you're confronted, and although a cell phone can be a potential theft target, walking confidently away while you're talking on your phone might dissuade someone from a attempt to confront you. I would not, however, wave around an I-Phone or Blackberry unless I was really unhappy with them and wouldn't miss them a bit.



A city offers the best and worst that we can imagine. Personally, I'd rather have a day of shooting in any city than two in a so-called idyllic location. If that's also your idea of a fun day, just be sure to pack your attitude, street smarts, and best walk-around lens.

Making Lemonade

There is a difference in philosophy between photographers that can be roughly divided into two camps: Those that eschew (ohh...nice word!)practically any sort of alteration, manipulation, or even casual color and levels adjustments to a photo, and those-like me-who have no problem bending, pushing, and squeezing pixels until they meet some sort of foggy criteria that they can then consider "artistic". We of the second camp can be a very pretentious group at times. I won't get into the area of photojournalism or any sort of photography where absolute truthfulness is required and should be a narrow and straight line that doesn't allow deviation. I don't particularly do the former type of shooting, so my involvement with Photoshop is generally a foregone conclusion when I download photos to my computer.

Whether it's a lack of proficiency in taking a proper photo that requires little or no adjustments, or a chemical ratio in my brain that demands I do that "push, pull,squeeze" dance with the pixels making up the capture, isn't really that important to me. I see a scene in front of me that makes a emotional imprint in my brain and I want to see that on my screen. The fact that it's not always completely there means I will use whatever skills I may have in photo manipulation to try and get to that spot. I don't harbor any embarrassment, shame, or, in some cases, self-control over this. However self-serving that may sound, I'm comfortable with that mind-set. I love photography. I love looking at photography that fires those pleasure neurons of my brain. What I try to do with the photos I take is ultimately very simple...create my own vision. If others find some pleasure or joy in it...cool. If they don't, I'm not shattered or upset. We all have different likes and dislikes. In the end, stripped of all its artifice, photography is a very personal medium and art form. I'm comfy and cozy with what I do and I'm quite happy I'm able to do it.



And that brings me to the theme of sorts for today...Band photography. Musicians are cool. I love the creative energy that musicians shoot off like high decibel sparks. Photographing bands and musicians though, is generally a horror. While stage lighting is dramatic and exciting to watch while you're an audience member, as a photographer it's sometimes beyond a challenge and into the nearly impossible range. Stage lighting usually flashes off and on. Colors change in seconds. Light levels are all over the place. And musicians have this weird tendency to move all over the stage, and even if they're standing at a mike, they...simply...won't...stay...still.



So while I'm a fan of the creativity and energy of bands and musicians, I've found that taking great shots of them is a challenge, indeed. Generally speaking, given all the pitfalls of lighting and movement, a fast lens is a must. A fast lens being one in the range of 1.4; 1.8; or close to that. These are lenses that will work well in low light situations such as a stage. However, shooting in low light and a wide open aperture like f/1.4 or f/1.8 will make your depth of field quite short and finding the proper focus difficult. (I'm purposely not approaching the whole flash/strobe aspect that may come into play in some band photography, because in most live performance situations, flash photography is either frowned upon or downright forbidden.)



There's also the problem of expose times you have to address, because low light means longer exposures. Longer exposures mean blurry photos because you can't hold a camera steady much beyond 1/30 of a second. That means you have to pump up your ISO...sometimes drastically. Modern SLR's will have settings beyond ISO 800, going to 1600, 3200, and some beyond that.



Noise, or grain, then becomes your biggest problem. You may be able to get a decent capture of a gyrating guitar player whomping out power chords with a setting of say f/1.8 at 1/125 and an ISO of 1600, but the noise/grain factor may be severe enough to give you a headache. You worked long and hard at getting to this gig and getting permission to shot the band and you've got a grainy, barely focused capture. This is a case of life handing you lemons...and you're going to make lemonade out of it. (Oh man, it took forever to get to the meaning of the title didn't it?)



This is then the area where Photoshop (or other editing programs), filters, actions, manipulation, guile, masking, burning, dodging, noise removal, and kitchen sink throwing come into play. This is the time where you get to play in your digital darkroom and squeeze out that vision you had when the lead singer was belting out "Stairway To Heaven" and you took the shot (They still do "Stairway To Heaven", don't they?). This is where you get up close and personal with the inner you and whatever creativity you can muster up.



Four of the shots appearing here were taken on a stage with one lousy spotlight that barely lit up the artist. The noise factor was horrible, and I was severely disappointed with the quality of the shots. It was time to make lemonade. Don't give up on your photos, no matter how bad they may look at first. Your vision is in that capture, and you may be able to coax it out. It's worth a try.

Self-Portrait Rules

The number one rule in self-portraits is this: unless you are a female with skin like that of a 6 month-old baby, and have a lean mean machine of a body, and the facial structure of a Greek Goddess, you're probably going to be disappointed. That's not to say you won't be able to take a decent shot of yourself, but the reality of a 10 plus megapixel capture on a computer monitor is that anything less than baby smooth skin, lean mean bod, and Greek Goddess looks will have you reduced to tears before you've even begun to attempt using the healing brush and cloning tool in Photoshop. In my case, because I didn't have a model and wanted to try out some new lighting set-ups today, the use of myself behind and in front the camera showed me that there aren't enough tools in the entire Photoshop suite to turn a sow's ear into anything other than another sow's ear. Ain't no silk purse coming out of my face. I do, however, have some pointers for those of you possibly suffering from a similar genetic train wreck.


First, it helps to wear a hat of some kind. In my case, it covers acres of bare skin running from my eyebrows to my back that have marks and blemishes that appear to need immediate medical attention. Dirty baseball caps are good...they tend to give one a friendly and personable look. Note: the cap should be worn in the traditional manner with the bill in the front. Wearing it to cocked the side like someone just slapped you doesn't project the friendly and personable look you need. Trust me on that.



Second, a funky, stylish, or classy hat in place of a baseball cap could work. Not necessarily to make you look like any of the above, but more to give you an air of je ne sais quoi. (French for "Check out this cool hat!") A black and white conversion here can also work wonders, softening the skin somewhat, and that red, splotchy complexion literally disappears.

If, like me, hats don't even begin to mask an essential failure of nature to be the least bit kind to you, and frown lines and wrinkles on your face look more like furrows in a farmers field just before the fall planting, a hood is a good choice. This pretty much gets you out of the friendly and personable arena, so evil, deranged, and border-line psychotic is the look you're going for here. This also has a tendency to look-although it might be a stretch-artistic.

Artistic is good. Artistic could make some people think you're celebrating and acknowledging your faults...embracing them, magnifying them in a courageous way that they wish they could do instead of having all their portraits air brushed to perfection. Which you'll probably seriously consider in the future after a self-portrait session, because there aren't nearly enough of those kind of people in the world.

You've Been Mooned

Was out a little while ago and the moon was looking mighty big and bright (it will be a full one tomorrow) and just begging to be photographed. I'm not sure exactly what happens in the brain when we see the moon like that and become...well...Moonstruck.


The moon has that air of mystery about it...seemingly so close, yet unreachable except to a very select few. When I first saw it tonight, it was low on the horizon and looked totally doable as a drive you might want to take. You could look at it and figure if you started out early enough and with a minimum of pit stops, a few cans of Red Bull, and a couple of those double packs of Milky Ways and Three Musketeers, you'd be in one of those craters by 8 or 9 that evening. (exif info: 1/60 @f/11.0; ISO 200; 300mm (480 with 1.6 conversion)taken 1/1/07)



Anyway, my point is the moon is a popular subject for anyone with a camera, yet it's not that easy to get a good capture. There are a lot of factors that go into that, and also a good number of preferred settings and suggestions about taking a proper moon shot. I was prepared to give you a major breakdown on some of the most popular of these until I realized a few things: one, you're probably smart enough to Google up about a thousand answers to a "Moon Photos" search that would give you more accurate information than me; and two, after looking at the EXIF data on two of the shots included here, it's possible I might not be all that aware of the proper settings or methods and was just lucky.

What I will do is direct you to a Flickr discussion here that has a lot of cool moon pictures, a lot of funny comment, and probably tells you more than I or a thousand Google pages ever could. You're welcome. (exif info: 1/125 @ f/5.6; ISO 100; 300mm (480 with 1.6 conversion)taken 5/20/05)



By the way...you'll notice the two solo moon shots here were taken in '05 and '07, not tonight. That's because it's too cold and windy for my delicate and finely tuned body to cope with. Moon shots are definitely easier in warm weather locations.

Roller Derby Delight

I've been shooting the lovely ladies of Lancaster County 's(PA)Dutchland Rollers for about a year and a half now, and it has been a blast. Derby today is all female flat track roller derby action, and while some parts of it may be recognizable to old geezers like me who remember seeing it on black and white TV in the 50's, this is the real deal. No fake fights (or real ones), no hair pulling, no scripted winners and losers, no looking like wrestling on roller skates. These ladies are college students, wives, mothers, and are all business when it comes to competition and skating. If you've heard of a league in your area and haven't been to a bout yet, you owe it to yourself to pack your gear and give it a try.



Fair warning...derby action is not that easy to capture. Derby rinks have a tendency to be poorly lit, have very high ceilings that make bouncing flash all but impossible without adapters, and the action on a short flat track is fast! If you're close to the action (and in most of the rinks I've seen you will be), a built in flash or speedlight will work to a degree, but unless you have a set up with multiple strobes around the track, you may not be entirely happy with the results. In my experience, while the flash does indeed "freeze" the action, backgrounds appear under exposed and flat, and frankly, I'm just not crazy about the look you get.



I shoot with a Canon 40D and my 85mm f/1.8 lens almost all the time, rarely try flash, and can usually get a fair amount of "keepers" if I concentrate on what I'm doing and not get caught up in the action. Shooting without flash in low light generally requires a fast lens and high ISO's, something today's digital SLR's can easily handle. With the 40D/85mm f1.8 combination I can set the ISO at 1250 and get decent shots at 2.0 and 2.5. A spinoff of the high ISO speed is the appearance of "noise" in the photo. Again, with today's cameras, especially recent Canon and Nikon models, the noise levels are quite acceptable even at those high ISO's. Of course, a good noise reduction program should be a must tool in everyone's Photoshop basket of goodies, and the one I use and recommend is a product from Imagenomic called Noiseware. It does a great job, they have a free trial version, and for about $50 US for the standard version and $70 US for the Pro edition, it's a decent buy.



Another important consideration is the focus mode of your camera. The 40D has a AI Servo mode that sets exposure with a partially depressed shutter button, but monitors the frame and refocuses if camera or subject is moved...a nice feature.



There are many other factors and camera settings to consider, in addition to where you're standing in relation to the action. Is it coning at you? Going left to right in front of you? Coming off a turn? The best advice I can give is to bring along plenty of memory cards and experiment with different settings and shooting positions. Check out the Dutchland Rollers if you're in the neighborhood, or check out their Flickr pages to see what you might be missing.