The Phoblographer

I’ve got the week off from work, so I’ll be posting more than once a day for this week. With that in mind, I went out today for a photo walk with the great David Cardinal: he was visiting NYC and I told him that I’d give him and his family a photo walk tour of NYC. While waiting for them, I looked out at the waters at South Street Seaport. With me, I had my Canon 7D and 85mm F/1.8. I shot the photo above on the left, but believe it or not I shot it around 5 times and different exposures until I remembered what I had been taught before. So in order to achieve the photo on the left I focused and metered for the sign which gave me the water all blown out. Then I metered for the sign, physically moved the camera’s focusing point to over the water and tried to figure out a good middle ground for me to be able to perfectly balance the water and the sign. After a couple of tries, the above left photo was the best attempt without a bit of fill flash. However, I knew that it was a good enough attempt that I would be able to fix it in post, and that’s the resulting photo on the right.

So what’s the point of this story? We need to go out there, shut up, and screw up. We as photographers can sit here all day and bad mouth others. But what do we have to show for ourselves? Can we do any better? I hate it when people complain about a cut off arm of a model in a portrait, if the image is astounding otherwise. Seriously, let me see what you’ve got instead!

The overall point of the story is that we need to go out there and shoot everyday. And we need to make mistakes. When we’ve made said mistakes, we need to come back and look at the results in the digital Lightroom and discern for ourselves how we could have done better. We should look at mistakes in a positive light because they are an opportunity for us to grow and become better photographers.

I compare this a bit to being a young(er) man. Every guy needs to figure out the tips and tricks to win a woman’s heart. But once he’s got a winning formula for him, he’ll be fine. But the only way that he figures out his formula is by going out there, getting hurt and making mistakes. Granted, love and photography are different fields. But that’s how I learned how to embrace mistakes.

And as photographers, we need to screw up and stop moping over the mistake. We just need to figure out how to become better and correct it next time.

Photojournalism is the process of documenting the happenings of life on camera through photography. These days, it tends to extend into videography but the main elements of the practice still hold their roots in still image capture. Photojournalism can still be a tough job as far as getting work and images that are different than other photojournalists but that is still a story that would hold an audience captive.

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So you want to take portraits? Great! There are a couple of basic tips and reminders that you should always check before you press that shutter button. Now that you’ve learned some of the terminology you can put it to good use. To aid with the process, here are a couple of basic tips for shooting portraits in the studio or anywhere else.

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The fact that I need to work on my food photography does not need to be stated. I clearly am not very skilled at it. However, the grilled chicken with mozzarella cheese and honey bbq sauce on cuban bread as delicious.

Shot with my Canon 5D Mk II, 50mm F1.8 II and using the available lighting from my kitchen ceiling.

We’re in a recession, so consumers (and photographers) naturally have to rely upon themselves to make smarter financial decisions. This can be tough, especially when choosing a camera. You probably have a camera right now and are not happy with it or you’ve got the money for one and are looking to make a purchase without breaking the bank. Throw what you know about megapixels, zooms, features, colors and compactness out the window right now. It’s time to know how to ensure that you’ll be satisfied with your purchase for a long time.

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