Good morning everyone! I know this is a bit strange to have an update on Thursday morning with no picture to go along with it, but I wanted to let you know about a podcast episode I recently recorded for the “This Week in Photo” network. It’s all about blogging and I used my experience with Weekly Fifty as the background for much of what I had to say. I thought you might find it interesting so I’m posting the link here:
http://thisweekinphoto.com/twip-family-56-photo-blog/
One rain-soaked evening in mid-April my wife and I had just finished watching The Martian and were getting ready for bed with our usual routines of turning off lights, loading stray items in the dishwasher, and finding stray toddler shoes to put back in their proper place when she came running up to me and said “I have a great Weekly Fifty photo for you!” Since it was nearly 10:30pm and we were about to turn in for the night I had no idea what she was talking about and at first thought it must be some kind of joke or prank. I followed her down the hall to our front door where we could see a tiny pair of green feet through the window in our front door, and the little triangle of a frog’s mouth sticking up right between them. Somehow a small frog had found its way to our front door and climbed almost two meters up on the glass so it could be close to our porch light, and there we were just staring at it through the window sort of dumbfounded at the whole situation.
I quickly ran to grab my D750 since there was not much light and I knew I would need to shoot at some high ISO values to get a decent photo of the frog, and we spent a good ten minutes trying different angles from inside the house without much success. It’s not that the frog itself was moving around or in a particularly bad position for a picture, but that all the images we made seemed to be somewhat devoid of context. Sure you could see a frog…but so what? The pictures we got were not all that interesting and certainly did not invite the viewer to look at them for more than a few seconds, if at all. My wife encouraged me to get up on a chair or stepladder and try some varying angles and while they were better than any shots I was coming up with, it still felt kind of lifeless and empty.
Since our little amphibious friend was staying fairly still and more interested in chilling out than moving around, I found a pair of flip-flops, donned a raincoat, and took my camera outside to see if I might have any better luck getting a more compelling photograph. My guiding principles here were subject, context, and composition. I wanted the subject of the image to clearly be the frog, and also have the viewer immediately be able to tell that this was a situation a bit out of the ordinary. Soon I realized that the porch light itself could provide the solution since you don’t normally see this type of scene, and shooting from a low angle implied that the frog was high up on the glass door. I moved around quite a bit trying to frame the picture exactly how I wanted, and shot this at f/1.8 to get a shallow depth of field in order that the viewer would see the frog first and the light (as well as other details) second. I also liked the lower ISOs that shooting at f/1.8 afforded, even though it wasn’t all that necessary on my D750 ;)
Anyway, I hope you like the final shot. I sure do, and to me this serves as a perfect illustration of how it’s important to use your camera every day and build up your knowledge of the fundamentals so when a cool moment like this strikes you are ready for it.
As usual I have no idea what kind of plant this is, and when I tried to find out by submitting the picture to a Google Images search all it came up with was “fruit,” which I am fairly certain this is not. I shot it while (what else?) out on a walk on campus one afternoon with my D7100 + 50mm lens, and in looking back on the picture later on I came to a realization about not just this picture but several of my pictures. It might seem obvious to anyone who reads this blog but I don’t think I ever quite thought about things like this before, and now that I look back at my images with a particular frame of mind I really do think I have come to a conclusion about my photography. Or at least my nature photography. Basically, in looking at this image I think I finally understand what my style is.
If I scan through past images of flowers, greenery, or even man-made objects that I have posted here I think it’s safe to say that this image, of some kind of bulb or seed pod, illustrates a few things that are common in much of my photography. Apparently, as I’m finding out is often the case, I like to place my main subject on the left or right third of the frame. Of this I was well aware, and sure enough I have done it again on today’s photo. (Incidentally, no cropping was involved here. What you see is what I got.) This is kind of an basic rule and one of the first techniques any photographer learns when it comes to composing an image, and yet I think I like it so much because, so often, it just plain works. Others might come along and say the rule of thirds is a crutch, shows a lack of creativity, or is meant to be broken but at the end of the day I find that I really like placing my subjects a little bit off center–usually along one of the thirds.
What this image has helped me realize is a few other elements that show up here also appear in many of my other pictures, and I do think this indicates some sense of an overall style–albeit one that I don’t think I have been implementing intentionally, but is nonetheless present. Along with my subject on the left or right third I also tend to include context clues in the background, often on the opposite third. I like to use a somewhat shallow depth of field, but not so much that the other contextual elements are blurred out so much that you don’t know what they are. I prefer a bit of foreground elements if possible, though there aren’t a whole lot in this picture. I let my subject exist well within the margins of the frame, usually occupying its own small part of the image and not so big that there is nothing else for the viewer to see.
The thing is, it’s good to try new techniques and experiment with different ways of taking photos, but it’s also good to develop your own style over time. Find a type of shot, a type of composition, a certain way of framing your subjects, that you can work on and perfect over the course of your photography life. It’s not a crutch so much as it is your own unique way of seeing the world, and while it is of course good to explore other things it’s nice to have a cushion to fall back on–a home, if you will, that you can return to when you’re not sure what else to try or what other things to do. This photo, I now understand, is an example of what I like and what works for me. It’s simple and quite uninspiring, and won’t win any awards, but it’s comfortable and I enjoy it.
What’s your style?
I remember the first time I was given a Gideon Bible. I was in elementary school in Lincoln, Nebraska, and came across some gentlemen handing out little orange copies of the New Testament, accompanied by Psalms and Proverbs as kind of a biblical bonus. My young fourth-grade mind didn’t quite know what to make of the situation, but I took the Bible in my small little hands, brought it home, and leafed through its pages with wide-eyed curiosity. I believe I already had a bible of my own, but what struck me about my new Gideon Bible was the manner in which it was given. The men who were handing them out at school that day were kind, friendly, and not judgmental in the least. Some kids kept their bibles, some threw them away, and I distinctly remember one being literally torn apart. It was a very literal scattering of seed, some of which fell on some on rocks, some on the path which was then devoured by birds, and some on fertile soil where it might eventually take root and produce good fruit of its own one day. The experience was not lost on my young mind.
Over the years I learned more about the this organization and their mission to spread the word of God to all corners of the world, and I still get a little twinge of joy when I look in a dresser drawer or end table in a hotel and find a small copy of the Bible emblazoned with the succinct yet powerful phrase “Placed by the Gideons.” It’s comforting to know that they are still out there, doing the work of getting scripture into the hands of as many people as possible. That short description is the background for this picture, which I shot on a chilly Wednesday morning in mid-April when the Gideons were on the OSU campus doing what they do: handing out free bibles to anyone who wanted one.
I brought my D7100 + 50mm combination to work on this particular day and actually spent a few minutes mentally debating whether I should go out and take a picture of these men. It seemed like a perfectly benign course of action, and yet I had a hard time bringing myself to do it. I knew all I had to do was ask one of the Gideons if I could take his photo and I was sure he wouldn’t mind, and yet I was lost in a series of mental gymnastics trying to justify my own inaction. “What if they think I’m weird?” “What if they say no?” “What if they get annoyed?” I finally mustered up the gumption to go out and snap a few pictures because, as finally told myself, “What’s the worst that could happen?”
As usual my fears and anxieties were entirely unfounded. I struck up a conversation with this man and his colleague who were standing on a corner about 50 yards from my building at work. We chatted for a few minutes about college, campus, bibles, and photography and they said I could most certainly snap a few pictures. I took four shots (two of this man, two of his friend), said Thank You, and went back to my office. This image is my favorite and captures so much of what I like about the Gideons. He is smiling and engaged in a genuine conversation with this young man, and the two of them are each clutching a precious object: one, a bible and the other, a phone. I don’t know if the student took the free bible or not, but hopefully he walked away with a positive impression of the other man and possibly a newfound respect for this type of street ministry.
To the guy in this picture: if you’re reading this post, thank you for doing what you do. It means a lot, to a lot of people.
Every now and then you’ll read (or hear, if you listen to the audio commentary) one of these Weekly Fifty posts where I discuss the photographic opportunities that abound right in front of our eyes even in the simple mundane activities that make up our daily lives. Photo opportunities are all around us if we are willing to look for them, and this image is an illustration of what I mean when I say this sort of thing. To wit: it’s not an exceptional image in terms of the sheer artistry or composition, but it does serve as a bit of a visual reminder to me, and maybe even to you, that you don’t need fancy gear or special subjects to take good pictures.
I shot this about 6am in mid-April when I was getting dinner ready before the rest of my family woke up. My wife and I are big fans of slow cooker dinners, and we will often get supper ready many hours in advance so we can just sit down with the kids for family meal time without having to prepare anything right in the moment. On this particular morning I had just finished cutting up a pepper and some onions and was in the middle of slicing this tomato when I thought of using it for a bit of an impromptu photo-op. I ran to fetch my camera (this time my D7100 + 50mm lens) made three images, all at f/1.8 about ISO 1100 (it varied slightly between each shot) and went back to dinner prep. The whole thing took about 40 seconds from the time I put down the knife to the time I picked it back up, and when it was done I felt like I had a cool little image of a sliced tomato while also learning something along the way.
This brief photo session also served as an object lesson in providing a bit of context to a given photo. The first two pictures I shot were just of the tomato itself, and then I realized that this by itself would not be sufficient. The scene was lacking something, and I soon realized what it was: the knife itself which was used to slice the tomato. See for yourself in this photo which was right before I put the knife in the frame:
This would be a perfectly serviceable photo if it was the final product, but it’s not. I didn’t make a sliced tomato for dinner, and as such this photo feels incomplete and a bit empty. After I realized this I quickly grabbed the knife I was using to slice it, put it in the foreground, and took the third and final picture which is much more well-rounded and interesting than this one. I also made sure to include the small chunk of tomato on the right-hand side in the final image as well, as it adds a dynamic element to the image–it helps tell a story that there was more to this photo than what you see, and clearly there is still more work to be done on this round red fruit. Or vegetable. Or however it’s classified.
I now realize that I have written over 500 words on a sliced tomato, which is about 450 more than a photo like this needs. My point, though, is that you really can turn just about anything into a picture. You just have to look a little harder and, of course, make sure you have your camera with you :)
By the way, the recipe I was making is Slow Cooker Pork and Rice:
Place in slow cooker:
2 or 3 Pork Steaks (not pork chops)
2 medium onions, chopped (it seems like a lot, but it’s fine.)
1 or 2 tomatos, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
Mix together separately, then add:
1/2 cup ketchup
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Cook on Low for 6-8 hours. Remove bones from pork steak when done, and use forks to pull the pork apart
Serve with rice ( ~2 cups uncooked basmati rice is about what I use)