STORYTELLING PHOTOGRAPHY AT EQUINE EVENTS

I’ve done a variety of equine photography over the years, but until I started doing photography at the Western Idaho State Fair I had never heard of draft horse log pulling competitions.  Upon seeing it listed in the fair event brochure with a start time of 7pm I knew it would at least have the benefit of some magic hour light, and that was enough for me to check it out!

When I got to the arena I was happy to see beautiful large horses and competitors with a lot of character and enthusiasm for their sport.  One of the good things about this sport is that it has action, but it’s slow…

f6.3 @ 1/400 sec., ISO 800; Lens @ 70mm

You can see what I like about this light; It’s an hour before sunset making the direct sunlight striking my subjects controllable.

Really nice friendly people here, too…

f5.6 @ 1/640 sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 88mm

A big part of my storytelling at these events is doing images of individual competitors for a glimpse of behind the scenes character.

An image to illustrate the competition…

The Competition

This shows the basic idea of the event; to guide the horses through the course and through the yellow course markers without knocking them down with the logs. It looks easy in the stills, but not so much in real life.

More of the character…

f5.6 @ 1/320 sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 200mm

Did I say they were friendly? And each had his own style—this guy had kind of a Hawaiian cowboy thing going on!

f6.3 @ 1/200 sec., ISO 800; Lens @ 120mm

She was obviously very serious about the draft course competitions, but she wasn’t there to just mind the horses….

f6.3 @ 1/400 sec., Iso 800; Lens @ 150mm

She was in the competition using the same two-horse, two-log, rig as the men.  This image is nice because it illustrates how those logs, as they turn through the yellow course markers, can twist and roll creating a serious foot hazard to the competitors!  They had to be quick and nimble avoiding the errant logs while still guiding the horses through the next turn.

That’s why staying ON the logs was best…

f6.3 @ 1/400 sec., ISO 800; Lens @ 90mm

This image sums up the classic Americana—with old glory flying in the background—of the State Fair here in Idaho.

I feel privileged to be here to document such things while they are still practiced.

’Til next week…

Author:  Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training site: http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

GETTING THE LOOK OF WILD ANIMAL PHOTOGRAPHY AT THE BOISE ZOO

As a professional photographer, I’ve never been anything but disappointed and frustrated with my results when doing animal photography at a zoo. My goal has always been to create animal images that could pass for photos taken in the wild. I had heard great praise about the San Diego Zoo and its enclosures, but when I visited their zoo back in 1995 I found that I could not get images of the animals with clean or natural looking back grounds.  It wasn’t until we moved to Idaho in 2009 and got involved with Zoo Boise, by donating to their silent auction fundraising event called Zoobilee, that I again entertained the idea of animal photography at a zoo. Still it wasn’t until 2017 that, wanting to try out a new camera for action photography, I attended the free vendor appreciation day at Zoo Boise to try to achieve my goal of natural looking wild animal photography in a serious way. 

I already knew that I wasn’t going to be doing any images of animals showing any landscapes, so I went with my 70-200mm zoom as my main mounted lens. 

Isolation of my subjects was paramount….

f6.3 @ 1/1250 sec., ISO 800; Lens @ 200mm

What further isolated the giraffes was the very directional light of the setting sun (it was about an hour before sunset). So, with the direct sun on them and not on the background my exposure on them made the background go very dark, which pretty much eliminated their enclosure as a background. The biggest challenge here was capturing them as they ran, at top speed, back and forth the length of their enclosure and then paused briefly to frolic, like necking teenagers, then separated again and ran off! I had to go to 800 ISO to get to a shutter speed (1/1250 sec.) that could stop their exploits as I hand held my camera and panned with the action.

When they calmed down….

f6.3 @ 1/2000 sec., ISO 800; Lens @ 200mm

I did get a nice portrait of one of them against a colorful background in lieu of the enclosure.

Then onto the lions den….

f5.0 @ 1/160 sec., ISO 1600; Lens @ 200mm

This was taken THROUGH the large window overlooking the lion’s enclosure. Usually, a polarizing filter would be needed here, but since the window here was fully covered (top and sides) with a structure that shaded the glass there were few reflections for me to worry about. With a much lower level of light here I went to 1600 ISO and still got great results from my new camera.  This was an easy capture; the only thing I had to watch for was the lion’s OPEN eyes, so I could get that nice catch light in the eye.

Late light and the zebras….

f5.0 @ 1/160 sec., ISO 3200; Lens @ 200mm

Now it’s only a half-hour before sunset and these zebras are in full shade and I’m composing through the leaves of some trees next to the fence that separates us.  I’m now at 3200 ISO and their images still looked really good. I just converted these to B&W because my subjects were….Black & White!

I’m really happy with my results at the Boise Zoo. It’s a nice little zoo with decent looking open enclosures in the giraffe area and the animals looked good.

Looking back on my early attempts at zoo photography I must say that the problem was not that those other zoos were so bad in 1995, I just wasn’t ready. This photographer has learned a lot about how to photograph difficult subjects in challenging situations over these past 24 years, which make it possible to photograph my vision!

Challenge yourself….try photographing in your local zoo and have some fun.  ’Til next week…

Author: Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training site:  http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

USING MONOCHROME TO REMOVE DISTRACTIONS IN PHOTOGRAPHY

Some subjects must be rendered in B&W or Monochrome because they simply lack color to begin with and they have excellent texture as well—such as old barn wood—then it’s a slam dunk. When color helps the center of interest or IS the center of interest than a B&W conversion will probably weaken the image. But, how many colors and where should they be within the frame? I’ve found in my studies of art that simplifying your color composition and placing powerful colors in one of the “crash points” by using “the Rule of Thirds” can make an image very powerful and not overwhelm the viewer. The point is when using color you must design the color composition into the image before you trip the shutter. If that not possible and you have a compelling subject, as in my example below, know that you will have some editing to do in “post”.

My Criteria to Convert Images to Black and White:

My basic philosophy on converting color images to B&W or monochrome has not changed since I was “shooting” film; the best B&W images have:

1. Directional Light; that makes Shadows
2. Good Blacks and Whites
3. Texture and or Details
4. A Strong Center of Interest

I think today’s example image meets my criteria….

f6.3 @ 1/500 sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 73mm

This image was converted to monochrome using NIK’s Silver Efex Pro-2. NIK is one of my favorite methods of conversion because it offers a lot of choices and styles as well as emulations; and it has 38 preset styles and 18 film emulation modes. 

My Process for this image:

• Brought down the highlights in ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) and made a jpeg.
• In NIK Silver Efex I selected the Antique Plate1 preset because I wanted a warm-tone monochrome not just B&W.
• Lastly I put a vignette on the image to darken the corners.

Here’s my original color version….

Original color version

This is a great example of color chaos! With this much uncoordinated color in a scene the viewer’s attention just bounces around all over the frame. In addition his lime green cowboy shirt was just not the classic, old time, cowboy style of image I was looking for!

That’s it for this week…Questions? Don’t hesitate to ask…’Til next week…

Author: Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training site: http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

WHY I OFFER PHOTOGRAPHIC EDUCATION NOT JUST SETTINGS; PART 2

At the end of Part 1 on this topic I veered into how I used a telephoto focal length to creatively interact with my Aperture to change the basic look of my image. In addition I used the telephoto effect of compression distortion to enhance the impact of the composition. I’ve found in my 40+ years of fine-art photography that the settings for exposure, in the creative process, cannot really be considered in isolation because one of the most important settings we use as a creative tool is Focal Length.

So I propose the Creative Quadrangle!

APERTURE, SHUTTER SPEED, FOCAL LENGTH, ISO

A Note about ISO Today

You’ll notice I put ISO last. That’s because it’s no longer the creative setting it once was in the film era. With film it was a choice we made right up front before we did any photography. The film we chose decided our Color Palette and the amount of grain we wanted (grain was a beautiful artistic effect). The whole look of an image was decided by the film type; Kodachrome, Ektachrome, color negative, Tri-X, Pan-X, etc., all had unique characteristics. No longer; ISO today is just a number. It no longer represents an artistic look. And, the ISO numbers today don’t even reflect an adjustability of the sensitivity of our DSLR’s sensor. That’s because we actually have no control over its sensitivity as every digital camera’s sensor has a Fixed Sensitivity.  All our DSLR’s do now when we roll-up to a high ISO is do a bright-up (increase gain) in response to an under exposure condition we created. The unfortunate result is increased noise—and noise is not pretty.

So, these days the only function ISO has is to get me to the Aperture/Shutter Speed combination I require to create the image.

So, back to my Creative Quadrangle…

In most of my fine-art images TWO Settings usually Dominate creatively:

• Aperture/Focal Length or
• Shutter Speed/Focal Length
• Sometimes ALL of them are critical for certain images

I will illustrate with some examples…

APERTURE / FOCAL LENGTH

 f7.1 @ 1/250 sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 200mm

Walking through our common area just before sunset I was looking for some icicles to align with backlight when I found this great threesome.

Shutter Speed:

For this image I wanted good Depth-of-Field and nice Bokeh in the background. Because the background is so distant I knew I could stop-down quite a bit and still knock that background way out-of-focus so I chose f7.1 to keep all the icicles and that clump of snow covered pine needles sharp.

Focal Length:

In addition I chose a Focal Length of 200mm to further soften the background and create Larger Bokeh. This illustrates nicely that you DON'T need Large Apertures for Good Bokeh—good Bokeh is more a matter of Long Focal Length than anything else.

SHUTTER SPEED / FOCAL LENGTH

f25.0 @ 1.6 sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 20mm

Working the Western Idaho State Fair is always challenging—especially the midway area.All the rides and attractions are placed close together and the place is chock-full of people every night of the fair. I brought my tripod since I knew I would be doing time exposures of the rides.

Shutter Speed:

I wanted my Shutter Speed to be at least 1-second to really make that Ferris wheel blur with color. In addition, I wanted all the people to disappear as much as possible. That structure in the foreground is a fun house maze and it was full of people running through those three levels of balconies. Doing some test shots I settled on 1.6 seconds by using my smallest aperture at a medium ISO to try to avoid too much NOISE.

Focal Length:

The Shutter Speed created the pizzaz here but the Composition was created by Focal Length. I didn’t want just an image of a solitary Ferris wheel—I wanted something in the foreground; I wanted leading lines. So, I backed-up directly in front of the fun house maze and used my lens at 20mm to distort that fun house (wide angle extension distortion), which turned it into an “arrow” pointing to the Ferris wheel—my leading lines!

Sometimes every setting is critical…that is what I will be covering in the final Part 3…’Til next week…now go out and practice!

Author: Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training site: http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

PROFESSIONAL STUDIO PHOTOGRAPHY—A BALLERINA

When doing photography of three-dimensional subjects, in the studio, it’s our job as professionals to use lighting that does not destroy that three-dimensionality. That means we must avoid Flat Lighting in most situations. One of the few exceptions I’ve encountered is in small product photography but, by and large, shadows should be created by our lighting set-up otherwise we just aren’t doing our job. I learned this the hard way and after 10-years of doing it like most other studio photographers did I discovered that I was simply using Too Many Lights! I was doing the usual Five or Six Light set-up and it just ended-up flashing all of the drama out of my images!  There were also Too Many Catch-Lights in my subjects eyes; it looked very unnatural. I learned that the offending culprit was using a studio Fill-Light; it flattened out my lighting ratio and created those secondary—ice pick like—catch lights in my subjects eyes. I, however, found that I couldn’t merely eliminate the fill light alone. It was demonstrated to me by Two Great photographers that I really respect, Will Crockett and Fred Hinegardner, that I also had to increase the Size of my Main Light significantly in order for the “wrapping effect” to eliminate the “need” of any type of fill.

So, I went from a typical 2 ft x 4 ft. Main Light to a 7-Foot OctoDome by Photoflex.

The results were stunning…

f13.0 @ 1/200 sec, ISO 200; Lens @ 70mm

There are only TWO Lights on my ballerina—the Main and the Hair Light; there are two lights on the background and that’s it.  I’m not even using a reflector.

Here’s my studio set-up for her…

Lighting Set-up

As you can see my large main light is placed to the side--just far enough so we maintain light in her far eye--creating a nice shadow on her face. The two background lights have grids and cine-foil shades to keep their light off my subject and ONLY on the background.

Here’s the only other Light in my set-up…

Hair Light

That 9”x24” strip light (also a soft box) does double duty here as the hair light and it puts highlights on her foot or hands when they’re above her head.

And Lighting from the opposite side…

Opposite side lighting

I’ve got my main light on Wheels so it’s easy to move to either side of the set.

Other advantages using a Large Soft Box:

• Nice Large (round with mine) catchlights.
• In close to subject wrapping effect with very soft shadows.
• Pulled back (as shown) gives crisp details with pronounced shadows.
• Covers large subjects or groups with ease.

Note on First Photo in the Blog:

The Lighting set-up in all these images is exactly the same. For the first photo I created a nice soft look in post by merely using Negative Clarity and Reduced Saturation.

That’s it for this week…Don’t hesitate to ask questions…

Author:  Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training Site: http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client Site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

ACTION PHOTOGRAPHY IN LOW LIGHT INTERIORS

Extreme action in poorly lit interiors is always a challenge in photography, and unfortunately, most dojos (martial arts studios) I’ve had the pleasure to document photographically were caves when it came to ambient light.  If you’ve read many of my blogs you know that I’m a really, really, really firm advocate of natural light whenever possible—especially in portraiture. But, when it comes to interiors, where there’s any action, if you don’t have the light, as a professional, you must create the light to get the job done. 

As soon as I walked into this room with its dark wood paneling I knew I’d have to use flash to avoid the black hole look and to stop some action. Many years of wedding photography has taught me that flash as the only source of light for interiors is horrible—it’s too harsh and your background goes dark so you lose depth.

So, to show depth in the scene and stop action we “drag the shutter” during the flash exposure. This simply means we use a longer shutter speed than is usually used for flash photography—we usually use the fastest shutter speed that will sync with the flash. With a longer shutter speed we are literally dragging in more of the room’s ambient light. 

Here’s the technique I used on the Japanese Martial Art of Kendo….

f4.8 @ 1/30th sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 24mm

Here’s what’s happening: The instant you snap the shutter the flash goes off stopping the action and creating all the highlights in the scene—the brightest images of the bamboo swords and those cool highlights on their chrome face guards for example. But, because we are forcing the shutter to stay open longer than the flash duration we get the secondary images of any fast moving elements in the scene.  In addition that longer shutter is also providing more exposure for the rest of the room—so, the background is not pitch black.

What I like about this technique is that you can show motion but still have sharpness at the same time…

f4.8 @ 1/30th sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 28mm

Here’s how you set-up the exposure:

1. Meter the room’s light level to establish your base exposure—I use an incident, hand held, light meter. I use the ISO to get me to a shutter speed I like. In this case I wanted 1/30 sec. and at ISO 400 my f-stop was f4.8, giving me adequate depth-of-field.
2. With my camera in Manual Mode to use my settings I put the flash in Auto set to f5.6—to allow for flash fall-off because I’m bouncing the flash off the ceiling with a flash defuser (the Gary Fong unit).
3. Fine tune your flash exposure if your subject distance changes by:
• While leaving the camera’s f-stop at f4.8 I’ll raise the flash to f8.0 for more flash effect or f4.0 for less flash effect.
• and/or I’ll tilt my flash more or less (it’s usually tilted at 45°) flash effect.
4. Shutter speed selection is a matter of taste. For really fast action like these martial artists I like 1/30th sec. because while I get nice action blur of their swords, arms and legs, their heads are still sharp.

See how sharp this guys eyes are….

f5.6 @ 1/30th sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 133mm

If you go to 1/15th sec., or shower then the action images start getting too abstract for my taste.

Wedding photographers have been using this technique for many decades and it works great for the reception events like the bouquet toss, garter toss, (just don’t drag it too long for these events) and the rock-n-roll dance action for something different….

Let me know if you have questions…’Til next week…

Author: Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training site: http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

ISOLATING THE SUBJECT IN RODEO PHOTOGRAPHY

I’ve been doing extreme action photography for over 40 years. Examples include many motor-sports such as formula race cars, Grand Prix motorcycles, motocross, top full dragsters, funny cars and drag bikes, WWII fighters and bombers. Some of the non-mototized sports have been BMX, hang gliders and sailboats. But, by far, the most challenging has been rodeo photography.  Why?  It’s not all that fast especially when compared to motor-sports—true.

There are two facets that make it difficult:

1.  The action is chaotic.  Because there are animals involved that the riders have no control over you never really know what they are going to do or exactly what direction they may go.  In contrast with motorsports I always knew exactly where my subjects were going and because they were on a closed course I knew about when they’d come by me again; that’s organized action.

2.  Rodeos are in stadiums which means there are fences and, worse, grandstands all around the subjects making a mess of my backgrounds.  This makes it very difficult to isolate the subject from the clutter of the fences, grandstand supports and a very colorful crowd of hundreds of people in those stands.

So, there are two ways to isolate the subject in stadium rodeo photography—you do it up front with your camera position….

f5.0 @ 1/2500 sec., ISO 800; Lens @ 120mm

This method of isolation is just camera elevation. Easy if you have enough lens and you’re at the top of the grandstand. That way you can shoot down on your subjects getting just the stadium dirt as a background. Not all that easy because if the horse or bull get too close to your side of the stadium then the fence on your side will intrude on your subject. And, if they are too far past the center of the stadium then your background will be the other fence and those ugly grandstands.

That’s when you get this kind of image…

 f5.0 @ 1/2500 sec., ISO 800; Lens @ 165mm

As you can see my bronc buster is pretty well lost in that colorful cloud of people behind him. Now the only way to isolate him is “in post”.

Here’s where I thank the “Great Cosmic Muffin” for Photoshop and layers, and my wife Kathi for her skill and patience in using those layers!

The first and hardest step is separating our bronc and cowboy, by using Photoshop’s Magnetic Lasso, to create a new layer that is independent from the background so that we can apply a gaussian blur to just the background.

Background Blur Added

It’s better and there is separation by softness, but there’s till too much color to really make him stand out from the crowd.  So, as a final step I had Kathi apply a sepia tone to the background layer…

Sepia Tone Added to Background

Now he’s really popping off the background! That’s all there is to it! You either plan and prepare—using lens choice and camera position—to take advantage when your subjects hit that magic spot in the stadium or you spend hours in Photoshop afterwords…usually both!

I suppose it’s all in what you as the artist will settle for as a final image…I don’t settle.

’Til next week….let me know if you have questions.

Author:  Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training site: http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

ACTION PHOTOGRAPHY -- SUBJECT’S SPEED VS. SHUTTER SPEED

I’ve been doing action photography for 40 years. Most of that was in the film era with everything in manual mode; most significantly our lenses were all manual focus! Many technical capabilities have changed, to our advantage, since we went digital.

— Shutter Speed:  Our old 35mm cameras were limited to 1/1000 of a second; today 1//8000 sec., is common.

— ISO Choices:  Our film limited us to 400-500 ASA—pushing to 1000 ASA had to be done at special labs; today the sky is becoming the limit.

— Manual Focus Lenses:  That’s all we had; today our auto focus lenses are superb giving us an amazingly high yield rate.

One of the most important things I learned, that has not changed, is to carefully plan my action images. Part of that planning is knowing what your action subject is going to do.  If I know where it’s coming from and where it’s going then I can place my camera in a great place to capture it in the proper place, compositionally, within the frame.

In this first example….

f6.3 @ 1/2000 sec., ISO 640

I wanted to catch this BMX Stunter with my camera in a vertical orientation and show the stand and street lamp (to indicate his altitude), as well as the horizon line of hills in the background. I did not pan my camera with his action, like I usually do; for this image I held dead-on to the compositional framing you see here and snapped the shutter as he flashed through the frame. This wasn’t really that difficult because his forward progress has slowed because he’s doing a 360 degree loop and I caught him at his peak altitude; he’s at 180° here and when he completes his rotation, wheels down, he’ll exit at frame left.

In this next image….

 f6.3 @ 1/2000 sec., ISO 500

For this image, since I just wanted to isolate him against the sky, I follow panned his run up the ramp, from camera right to left, and as he went airborne I froze his action at its peak with my fast shutter speed.

A Style Note on Shutter Speeds

My style or philosophy on capturing action is generally:

— For relatively slow moving subjects (like these bicycles or rodeo photography) I use Very Fast Shutter Speeds.

— For very fast moving subjects (like race cars and motorcycles) I use Slow Shutter Speeds.

Sounds counter-intuitive does it?

Well I found many, many, years ago that slow moving action subjects often look more interesting when frozen at peak action.  Whereas very fast moving subjects like race cars or motorcycles, on a road course, look very boring when frozen in place; it turns the race track into a parking lot!

Here is how I portray great speed….

f16.0 @1/15 sec., ISO 400

This fast action pan is pretty radical with my shutter speed at 1/15th of a second. You can see its effect on the front bike as we have some “jiggle-blur” because that bike hit some bumps on the track.  However, the effect of panning on the track and background is great and the isolation of the racers, as a result, leads your eyes to them.

The key to pulling-off good pans is to follow the action smoothly and to follow-through. You’ll get a better yield with high speed action pans if your shutter speed is a little faster—say 1/30th or 1/60th of a second.

How about a fast moving stationary subject?

f11.0 @1/30th sec., ISO 400

This image at the Western Idaho State Fair of an antique steam engine driving belted pulleys to a pump is a fast mover and yet is just sitting there! So, I used a slow shutter speed to make the large flywheels mostly clear to reveal the crank, rods, and belts working between the wheels. Then in post I did some tone mapping and converted the image to Black and White.

Now in this final image the dragster is not going super fast, but it’s not slow either….

f11 @ 1/500 sec., ISO 400

This image of the legendary Chi-Town Hustler, funny car, at the Fremont Drag-strip was done at a medium shutter speed because when a dragster is doing a long burn out, like the Chi-Town Hustler was famous for, it’s not moving at race speeds because it’s literally spinning its tires!  My goal was to freeze all that nice back lit smoke with the funny car at the head of its’ rocket like contrail.

Technical Note:

The first two images, of the BMX stunter in the air, were done with the auto focus, on my Canon 70-200mm f2.8 lens, in the AI Servo AF Mode. This mode is for moving subjects when the subject’s distance keeps changing. As you hold down the shutter release halfway the subject will be focused continuously.  The AI Servo AF Mode is simply fabulous! I wish I had this technology 40 years ago; my yield doing action photography would have been dramatically higher.

So, any of you out there reading this, try some radical, slow shutter speed, pans of a fast mover and show me your results,  Have some fun!

’Til next week….Don’t hesitate to ask question….

Author:  Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training site:  http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

PHOTOGRAPHY OF HOT AIR BALLOONS USING PROFESSIONAL TECHNIQUES

I treat hot air balloons like very large, colorful, sculptures. So, I apply my usual rules of composition and lighting to create visual interest and three dimensionality. The challenge is that these things are very dynamic and offer several stages in the process from their initial inflation with fans, then the ignition of the big gas burners, bringing the balloon to vertical, followed by lift-off and then the jostling for position as 20 or 30 balloons spring into the air in very quick succession

It’s all very hectic and chaotic and in that first hour, as the balloons launch all around me, I’m constantly turning and shooting as I capture the action unfolding 360 degrees around me. In that first hour I make at least 300 images.

Yeah, some of you are saying, that’s all he takes! Well, all I can say is that I’m very picky about when and where I click the shutter. I rarely do the single balloon image, especially in the air, as I find those rather boring. My favorite photographic challenge is creating compositional layers of multiple balloons. So, I’m always looking for interesting juxtapositional combinations….

f6.3 @ 1/400 sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 45mm

These two balloons, visiting from Belgium, at our annual Spirit of Boise Balloon Classic, are sculptures in cloth! Since they were parked next to each other I circled around them to layer one against the other stopping when I got the nice directional light (when the shadow side of the subject’s face is nearest to the camera…this is called “Short Lighting”) on Yoda’s face.

Here’s another layered composition….

f6.3 @ 1/320 sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 24mm

Here I circled around to get the, back, side light and captured four balloons! I’ve got the foreground, mid ground and background composition with two balloons in the air; Nice!

I love the duality of hot air balloons.  When going aloft they fly in silence like a kite on the wind and then the gas burner roars to life, breathing fire into it, giving the balloon its primal source of lift.

f7.1 @ 1/250 sec., ISO 800; Lens @ 24mm

When doing the balloon’s initial heat-up I usually pick a dark colored balloon for this image so the fire will really stand out.

I’m a sucker for backlight…

f9.0 @ 1/640 sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 70mm

These two balloons were coming back for their landing so I moved towards some trees, for some foreground interest, waited for them to overlap and got them both glowing in backlight. 

This is how I broke my rule against images of single balloons in flight…

f13.0 @ 1/400 SEc., ISO 400; Lens @ 55mm

As the balloons drifted west towards the entrance to Ann Morrison Park (Boise, Idaho) I remembered the fountain! Fortunately, the fountain was OFF, but still full of water, giving me perfectly still water for a perfect reflection making my single balloon a two-shot!

Technical: 

All of these images were taken using my Canon 24-105mm, f4.0, Lens on either my Canon 5D MKII or Canon 70D body. I find this lens gives me the most useful focal lengths for these large subjects and the speed that only a zoom can provide.

’Til next week…Have a question?  Don’t hesitate to ask…

Author:  Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training site: http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

A PROFESSIONAL’S GUIDE TO RODEO PHOTOGRAPHY ~ PART 2

In Part-1 I mentioned how unpredictable the action is in rodeo making its photography especially challenging compared to motor sports. Because of this my technical approach is markedly different doing rodeo vs. motorsports photography. All of my camera settings are just he opposite in these two action genres!

Shutter Speeds

Motor sports ~ 1/30th sec., to 1/250 sec.

Because there’s nothing quite so boring as a race car or motorcycle frozen in place on a race track, using a high shutter speed, making the race track look like a parking lot, I rarely used very high shutter speeds. So, to  imply great speed I used SLOW shutter speeds (eg. 1/30th - 1/60th sec.) and panned my camera, tracking the action, creating nice streaks in the background. The slow shutter speeds also made the wheels blur completely adding to the sensation of speed. On motorcycles the spokes disappeared rendering their wheels so clear you could see the background through them. This applies to prop driven aircraft as well. The one mistake that many amateurs make when photographing propeller aircraft is using a shutter speed that stops the propellers! After all, aircraft when taxiing on the ground are very static—the only things that are creating action are the propellers. So, I’m usually using 1/60th sec to create nice blurred propellers.

Rodeo ~ 1/1000 sec., to 1/5000sec.

Nothing in rodeo moves anywhere near as fast as any serious motorsport and yet ironically I use consistently much higher shutter speeds in rodeo action because its action tends to be very short bursts of extreme action at very unpredictable moments. In addition, unlike motorsports, when we freeze the action in rodeo it often gets more interesting to see the complex elements exploding into action that we can’t see in real time.

Like this….

f5.0 @ 1/5000 sec., ISO 800; Lens at 130mm

I start at 1/2000 sec. for most rodeo events, but even that shutter speed will not stop the extremely violent action in some events like the saddle bronc rider, above, being ejected off his mount. This one though at 1/5000 sec. has all the action stopped showing everything in sharp detail.

F-Stops

Motorsports ~ f8.0 to f16.0

When doing action pans at slow shutter speeds the f-stop must go to smaller apertures to maintain proper exposures. Another benefit to those slow shutter speeds is that even with the increased depth of field created by these small apertures—which could otherwise ruin the image by showing too much detail in the background—the panning action blurs out all that unwanted detail.

Rodeo ~ f4.5 to f6.3

Today I can confidently use any ISO I need to get me to the shutter speed—f-stop combination I require to get the shot.

f5.0 @ 1/3200 sec., ISO 800; Lens @100mm

This is one of my favorite rodeo images because it captures in one frame the whole story behind team roping; probably the most difficult rodeo event to photograph. The reason I got this image is because I chose to place myself in the announcer’s booth—a nice elevated platform to eliminate some of the stadium background—so that when the "header" lassoed the steer I knew that he would turn his horse towards me to stop the steer’s forward progress and expose the steer’s hind quarters so the "heeler" could lasso the steer's rear legs. With them turning towards me, as a group, it compressed the composition keeping all of the action in frame. 

Camera placement is important in ALL photography, but I’ve found that in rodeo it’s critical all the time.

Such as in calf roping…

f5.6 @ 1/2000 sec., ISO 800; Lens @ 280mm

In this event the calf is released, giving it a head start, before the mounted cowboy is allowed to pursue in his attempt to rope, bring down, and tie the calf. So this creates a large space between the cowboy’s horse—that stops after the lasso has connected with the calf and, as the cowboy jumps off the horse to tie the calf, the horse will keep the rope taught (the horse will actually back-up to do this!) while the cowboy runs towards the calf.

Compositionally as seen from the side this is just too wide a grouping, so I chose to face the action, as it comes towards me, from across the arena, and compress the action with my lens at 280mm.

Technical stuff…

I’ve been using the Canon 5D MkII and the Canon 70D with great success even though these are not considered professional action platforms. I’ve found that they perform well when the auto focus is set to the Ai Servo Mode. Both follow action well when doing action sequences at high frame rates.

My main lens is the Canon 70-200 f2.8 lens. I’ll add the Canon 1.4X extender when needed.

I hope some of my hard earned experience in action photography has been of some help. Please don’t hesitate when any questions…’Til next week…

Author: Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training site: http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com

A PROFESSIONAL’S GUIDE TO RODEO PHOTOGRAPHY ~ PART 1

As a former motorsports photographer let me say this, rodeos are a challenge! I’ve only photographed a few rodeos since moving to Idaho, and they’re a real kick, but having photographed everything from motocross to warbirds, top fuel dragsters, Indy cars, Grand Prix Motorcycles, and professional AMA, half-mile and mile, flat track motorcycles, all fast moving sports, the big difference in rodeo photography that makes it such a challenge is its utter chaos! The cowboys and cowgirls in most rodeo events aren’t “driving” something from point A to B and repeating like a motorsport racer does on a track. I always know where a motorsports racer is going—they start here and finish there and lap after lap the pros hit the same line through turns within inches of their previous laps. I can plan my shots and get great images all day long. But, in this sport, these cowboys are just along for the ride on these crazed bulls and broncs! Nobody knows where these animals will go or what they’ll do at any point once the gate is thrown open.

One of the rodeo events they do manage pretty well is steer wrestling where the cowboy leaps off a perfectly good horse, at full gallup, onto a steer and wrestles it to the ground! 

f5.6 @ 1/2000 sec., ISO 800; lens @ 280mm

The one bit of control they attempt here is having another rider bracket the steer to keep the animal moving in a straight line between the horses—it usually works! This event is easy to photograph from the front—you just need a long lens and a high shutter speed.

Part of covering the rodeo is capturing the color and pageantry of the event, so I always do images of the flag gals when they ride around the arena to display the sponsors’ flags…

f5.6 @ 1/1000 sec., ISO 400; Lens @ 185mm

I always get them coming and going so that I get clear images of those flags for inclusion in the following year’s rodeo program. 

One of the fun events at the rodeo is the “mutton busting” competition for the kids.  Seeing how long these kids could stay on these rampaging sheep was hilarious and sometimes exciting to watch…

f5.0 @ 1/2000 sec., ISO 800; Lens @ 145mm

This kid lasted about 4 seconds…I love the expressions on the two girls in the background!  It’s a great introduction and training for the future, bronc busting, bull riding champions.

Since I had a press pass and could go anywhere, I naturally gravitated to the inside of the arena and watched where the other photographer stood; an experienced rodeo photographer for a local newspaper.  I thought this was really cool being on the ground floor (literally) where the action was!  Since the newspaper photographer was standing pretty close to the gate as the first bull rider was released I felt decidedly uneasy after the bull spit its cowboy off its back and quickly went after the nearest rodeo clown—now they are called “bull-fighters”, but I’ve yet to see any fighting—it’s mostly running away! Seriously, though, these “bull-fighters” are terrific. Without them, putting themselves in harm’s way, the cowboys would be chopped meat out there

f5.6 @ 1/2000 sec., ISO 800; Lens @ 200mm

Don’t know who has the bigger “pair” in this standoff, it may be a draw!  So, when the second bull was released I was already back pedaling when I saw this bull was a “spinner” and launched its rider very quickly.  In the next instant, still spinning, I saw the bull closing on the other photographer and fortunately he wasn’t hit by the sharp end of the bull when he was slammed into the arena fence!  After that I left the arena for the higher safer, ground of the announcer’s platform.  That turned out to be the best decision I made since, not only was it safer, but that elevated position gave me a great high angle down view that eliminated a lot of the ever present crowd filled bleachers that mar most rodeo photography.

My goal in most outdoor photography is to get a clean background.  Being elevated gave me more of the arena’s dirt as a background, which is a huge improvement over the arena’s fence and all those bleachers.

In Part 2 I’ll go into some technical info on high speed action photography of this wild and crazy sport. ’Til next week…

Author: Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman

Training Site: http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com

Client Site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com