All posts by bobmadden

Madden Print Accepted for Prestigous Gallery

Recently the Mitchell Gallery in Annapolis, Maryland accepted one of my photographs for the exhibit “Image and Imagination”. It is a juried show. The exhibit opens May 24 and the show is up until June 12, 2012 . My photograph is titled Cloud Gate — Under the Bean, taken in Millennium Park in Chicago, Illinois.

As a working photojournalist, it is always gratifying when one of your images is accepted as art. As a Tom Kennedy, the former Director of Photography at National Geographic said once, “Photojournalism at National Geographic is like the photographer riding a bicycle down a line between art and information. The rider can’t veer too far to one side or the other.” In other words, the resultant photograph has to be understandable, yet not trite.

Come see the exhibit if you are in Annapolis.

Three Miami Herald Photojournalists

Patrick Farrell Al Diaz Carl Juste

I recently attended a talk by three Miami Herald photojournalists called Photojournalism in the Digital Age held by the South Florida Camera Club at Artserve in Ft. Lauderdale, FL

The photojournalists are Patrick Farrell, Al Diaz and Carl Juste. One might call them “newspaper photographers”, but they would only be partially correct. These three individuals are committed – to their craft, their unique vision and to creating photographs that are both honest and impartial.

And they are excel in what they do. In 2009, Patrick Farrell won the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography for his devastating photographs of the aftermath of the 2008 hurricanes in Haiti.

I have attended many presentations by photojournalists, but these three provided their view of difficulties and advantages working “In the Digital Age”. They expressed a lament for the potential loss of their publishing platform, The Miami Herald, with the advent of the Internet. As Carl Juste said, “The Herald is still breathing. It is on life support, but still breathing”. He went on to talk about the fourth estate (a term used to emphasize the independence of the Press), and rhetorically asked who else would fund “month and a half long” projects to help viewers understand issues of the day in human terms.

Interestingly, none of the three bashed the Herald. They have all been furloughed by the publication, they now have to purchase their own equipment ($$$), and their compensation from the newspaper reflects a living wage — not even close to the income of the one percenters.

Patrick, Al and Carl are humbled being able to do what they do. I hear this from most photojournalists, but these three view their profession as a game changer. And it is.

Farrell, Diaz and Juste have all covered Haiti, as the country is part of Herald’s regional coverage, considering how close it is to Miami and the immigrant population. By comparing these photojournalist’s individual coverages, you can see the way each approach a similar subject, and how each has a particular style to tell riveting stories from that nation.

To see the power of their images, go here for Patrick Farrell’s work in Haiti; for Al Dias go here; and here for Carl Juste.

In addition, here is Patrick Ferrell’s website to see his other coverages:

I offer this poem in tribute to these three dedicated individuals…

Photojournalist

I am witness

to transgressions, corruption and greed.

Using my photography to share stories that

provide understanding and enlightenment.

I am witness

to natural disasters and the natural world.

Documenting their effects on humankind that

validate the power of nature and its beauty.

I am witness

to swimming pool openings and public meetings.

Presenting my subjects in ways that

transcend the mundane of everyday life.

I am witness

to wars, aggression and violence.

Recording horror, misery and shame that

fill my world with skepticism, not cynicism.

I am witness

to social problems and health issues.

Seeking answers to ethical questions that

communicate fundamental human responses.

I am witness

to love, neglect and indifference.

Illustrating affinity and malevolence that

relate to everyman as we navigate through our lives.

I am witness

In an era where economics of my profession prove difficult.

I stay committed in my pursuit of truth and justice

for you.

Post Script: After returning from Florida, I was in New York City and attended a “conversation” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art featuring icons of painting and music, Chuck Close and Philip Glass.

The commitment and dedication to their art echoed Farrell, Dias and Juste in Florida. Glass spoke of art as pushing social and cultural ideas forward that will outlast the artists themselves.

Traveling Around the Internet

Photography websites can be good, bad and indifferent. I recently was trolling for photographers to do work for an interactive app featuring travel guides to various cities of the world https://bobmadden.com/work/mobile-apps.php

I used Craigslist to place ads in a number of cities, and asked the photographers to put in the subject line the city that the ad appeared. In the body of their return email, I asked for a link to their work. I received hundreds of emails in return. I organized them by city and then opened the emails, immediately looking for the link and going to the images.

NGS Stock Sales

Even though I had specified that it was an editorial job, I received wedding sites, fashion sites, vacation picture sites on Flicker and Picasa, etc. Some played music, some took ages to load, some had slide shows, etc. Most had galleries, a biography and a contact page. It was a sobering experience. Reminds me of the joke: “What is the definition of ego? It’s the little bit of photographer that everyone carries down deep inside.”In my net travels, I have come up with a few photography-oriented sites that I thought I would share.

Above is the link to my stock images at National Geographic. Note that these pictures are editorial in nature and are quite different than the images on bobmadden.com. These images are placed there for commercial sales, and bobmadden.com deals with consumer sales. Once on the NGS site, under “Quick Explore” type in robert (space) madden and you can search my images and buy them.

Photo Society

Another site that aggregates like-minded photographers is The Photo Society whose mission statement reads “We are a group of contributing photographers for National Geographic Magazine, committed to telling the world’s stories through pictures” Again if you click on the logo when you are in my area of the site, it will take you to the home page. This site is extremely valuable to me, as all of these photographers shoot high quality images the world over. A client can get right to my site and me with one click, or browse through pages such as “Vignettes” or “Why We Do It”.

Burn Home Page

An interesting aggregation site is burn magazine, and the mission is “an evolving journal for emerging photographers.” Started and curated by David Allan Harvey, this site features photographic essays from all over the world and has a lively forum for comments/criticisms.

James Nachtwey Home Page

Individual photographers have compelling sites as well. One that is powerful and disturbing is James Nachtwey’s. His mission is described on his home page as follows: “I have been a witness, and these pictures are my testimony. The events I have recorded should not be forgotten and must not be repeated.” It’s hard to forget these images.

Can you see a pattern here? Mission. Purpose. These sites are more than the massaging of a libido.

Steve McCurry Home Page

Now, I would like to direct you to Steve McCurry’s site. His images are breathtaking and each is a jewel of color, composition and subject matter. The blog is different, as it is made up of images and poetry. Unexpected, but gripping.

Finally, if you are aware of any extraordinary photographic websites out there, please send me the URL and I will amend this blog to include them (Not YOURS silly. Remember the joke about ego?).

Off to the Everglades

Note: Mild winter weather affected an eagle photography trip that I had planned for January on the Mississippi River. The eagles concentrate near dams when the weather gets damn cold. Up to 500 of them will take advantage of fishing in open water below just one dam. We decided to bag it and go in 2013. The eagles won’t know the difference.

This month’s blog (February) can be considered the opposite of my previous blog – The Urban Scene.

I went to Florida with a friend principally to photograph the wedding of a family member of hers, but we decided to take advantage of the trip to do some nature photography, be true to our active lifestyle, and get out of the “cold” weather; hence the Everglades.

According to their website, Everglades National Park is “…the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States, featuring rare and endangered species. It has been designated a World Heritage Site, International Biosphere Reserve, and Wetland of International Importance, significant to all people of the world.”

What is not apparent on the website is that this National Park is extremely close to two urban areas — sandwiched between over 5,500,000 on the Southeast coast of Florida, and nearly 2,000,000 on the Southwest coast.

Not to worry. This is the high season in the Everglades, and though there were a healthy number of people there, it was nothing like Yosemite or Yellowstone with their traffic jams. Indifference to the wilderness? Hard to say, but who cares.

We located in Everglades City, a town that reminds my friend of “Old Florida”. The town was established in 1873, and in 1923, Barron Collier, a wealthy entrepreneur from Memphis, fell in love with the area and began buy land – eventually over a million acres. He drained the swamps and built a town, featuring a bank, a county court house, a laundry and incredibly put in a street car system! Barron agreed to finish the Tamiami Trail, the road from Tampa to Miami, for the state of Florida, which at that time was literally mired in the muck near Everglades City. The legislature was so grateful, they renamed the county Collier County as his namesake.

We stayed at The Ivey House, which features the old barracks built for Tamiami Trail workers, and now remodeled. The communal toilets, showers and washbasins still survive in what is now called “The Lodge”.

Why there? Because the Ivy House is owned by the same group that owns Everglades Adventures, a kayaking and canoeing company that rents boats and conducts tours into the backcountry.

Here is a tip to help those with limited time experience the best places in the Everglades to get close to wildlife:

• Take a sunset/night guided kayak tour with Everglades Adventures. Half of the trip though the mangrove tunnels is in the late afternoon, and the other half is returning with headlamps. In the open areas, we turned off the lights and experienced a starlit canopy where we picked out constellations and sat motionless in awe.

• Go to Shark Valley in the early morning and walk or rent bicycles for the 15 mile (out and back) paved path – highlighted by an observation tower at mid-point. The “straight” side of the path has a canal alongside of it that is loaded with alligators, turtles and many species of birds.

• Get to the Ernest Coe Visitors Center for a great overview of the Everglade history, the pressures on the Park, the wildlife that inhabits it, etc. After this stop, go to the Anhinga Trail boardwalk (fifteen minutes from the visitor’s center) to see close up more amazing species in their natural habitat. I was using a 300mm lens, and sometimes it was too long!

Other sights around Everglades City are the Museum of the Everglades in the historic laundry building, and Chokoloskee Island. Good eats at the Havana Café in Chokoloskee, and at the Camellia Street Grill in Everglades City.

Following our Everglades adventures, we attended the Burrowing Owl Festival in Cape Coral, held at Rotary Park. Many representatives from local and national parks were there, plus other ecologically minded organizations. The festival featured captive animals to view close up, and the organizers took several busloads of people out to where the burrowing owls nest (in burrows of course). These critters are only about 10 inches high. Cape Coral has the largest concentration of these owls in Florida – over 2,500 nests. Although many owls were present at their burrows, a tip came from an owl aficionado: Come in early May when the chicks hatch and see them at the entrance to the burrows.

It will make for better pictures, and isn’t that what it is all about?

Photographing the Urban Scene

I have had many city assignments around the world, notably Sydney, Toronto, Washington, D.C. and as part of country or state stories I have covered Berlin, Seattle, Caracas, etc. I have included one image on this website (the Cloud Gate Sculpture, Millennium Park, Chicago) from these assignments, as generally cityscape images are too complicated for a wall hanging.

December 2011 and January 2012 were travel months for me, but generally for family gatherings over the holidays and a special birthday celebration in Yosemite NP in California. These trips included two visits to New York City and one to Los Angeles, where both scenes, while different, provided interesting subject matter.

In the past 20 years, professional photography of landmark buildings has become more difficult, as owners trademark specific images of their structures. The list includes the Chrysler Building, the Trans Am Building, and The Willis Tower amongst others. In addition, since 9/11, many stores and buildings with interesting public areas forbid pictures perhaps because of terrorist threats, but it is hard to know, as the arbitrators of the rules (doormen, clerks) most often did not make them.

Some National Parks and public grounds such as the Vietnam Memorial and the Washington Monument require professional crews to obtain special permission or they are shooed off. All that being said, it is still possible to capture cityscapes that reveal the flavor of a particular town.

My friend and I walk almost everywhere, which allows me to come upon many situations that would be difficult if I was in a car or cab. Lately, I have become more and more mobile – not taking my larger DSLR if there is no assignment or a specific subject that I am covering. My “cameras” range from my 8 Mb iphone to my Canon 5D (21.5 Mb) and include a Canon S95 (10 Mb) that my friend owns. The smaller “amateur” cameras surprise me many times with their versatility and that can make up for their shortcomings with lenses and small file sizes. All do well with details that often give insights on the city.

For instance, in NYC I captured the traditional holiday chestnut vendors, the ceiling of the New York Public Library, a bookshelf at the library, a worker in front of a tony Fifth Avenue store, and the 9/11 Memorial amongst many others.

In Los Angeles, images from this trip included the Frank Gehry designed Walt Disney Concert Hall , the Getty Center and the Getty Villa .

A photo tip: If you photograph a building in its entirety, most often you show the architect’s vision, and not yours. If you are selective with your camera, often the interpretation of what the architect was trying to accomplish is evident in the details, and the image becomes “yours”. Sometimes less is more.

Florida Kite Boarding

Off the east coast of Florida, near Pompano, there is an area of the beach designated for kite boarders. On a windy day, the kiters are out in force, ripping through the waves at 20 knots per hour or more, and then lifting off the surface of the water to heights of 25 feet plus.

Kite surfing became popular right after the new millennium and has replaced traditional boardsailing (windsurfing) because of its versatility, i.e. not having to deal with a mast and boom. The secret is in the kite. Nominally a parabolic wing, it is inflated with air, so that if it hits the water it won’t sink. There are lines to deal with, but the harness helps keep them from tangling.

The board is approximately three feet long and is not unlike a snowboard — the rider is similarly locked in with stationary boots. Skegs on the bottom of the board help give it forward motion, but the kiter uses the edges of the board “carving” the water to change direction. The kiter can also pull up out of the water to jump waves, do 360’s, etc.

The colorful sails and acrobatic kiters make for great pictures, but it is difficult to show their impressive speed. One way is to “pan” with the rider and blur the water, another is to show jumps and tricks in sequential images, but the best way is with video.

5D Kiteboard Clip My main camera, a Canon 5D shoots 1080p HD video, but without several pieces of additional video specific gear (like neutral density filters, a follow-focus knob, an audio recorder, a larger monitor and shoulder frame), it is difficult to create high quality imagery. Click on the link to the video I took of kite boarders with the 5D. Note in my video that the kite boarder goes in and out of focus because I was viewing the video on the small LCD screen on the back of the camera. Also as I had no tripod, the wind became a factor.

As part of this trip, I attended the Miami Short Film Festival (tag line: It’s Miami, it has to be shorts.) Because more and more of my assignments require both video and stills, I was anxious to see a demo of the new Canon EOS C300 video camera. It was announced in Hollywood in November 4 and will be available in January. It was a treat to see it, touch it and ask the questions that needed to be asked.

My take is that the camera will be a tool of choice for the serious videographer. It has several drawbacks, namely no headset for the operator, the Canon codex (another one that has to be supported), the incoming audio is connected through the handle on top of the camera and although detachable, you would rarely want to, as the camera itself has no mike capabilities.

But weighing a little over three pounds, capture at 50 Mb/sec and a top end of 20,000 ISO (not a misprint), it has to be reckoned with. The price is rumored to be $20K, and if that is true, it will be a rental unit for many of us. A $10K-12K price point would have Canon selling many more units. They did stress that this was the first camera in a line of cine cameras for the company, so stay tuned.

At the Workshop – It Didn’t Rain on Our Parade

At my fall Horizon Workshop http://www.horizonworkshops.com/workshops.html?cr=80 October 28 – 30, the weather turned real nasty on Saturday, with temperatures in the mid-thirties, winds and driving sleet, which does not photograph. We saw it coming, and through emails during the previous week, the workshoppers and I discussed what to wear and what to bring in preparation for the inclement weather (e.g. no umbrellas, as it is hard to hold an umbrella and a camera at the same time).

I shifted some of the events planned for Saturday to Friday and Sunday and hoped that on Saturday we could proceed with Plan B. Photojournalists on assignment often need to do this, as the landscape changes regularly. The projected title of my fantasy book is, “You should have been here yesterday, we had a parade and a big rainbow, and today it’s raining.”

On Saturday, after a breakfast powwow, we went to Winbak Farms http://www.winbakfarm.com/about.asp , a horseracing operation near Chesapeake City. Upon arrival, we asked if they would be working the horses on the track, and the answer was that “This kind of weather makes both horses and people sick.” But they graciously said that we could photograph in the barns.

On Friday night, we had photographed the Ghost Walk in Chesapeake City that is held on the weekend near Halloween. Knowing the Saturday Ghost Walk would literally be a washout, I gave a crash course on Friday night on how to change the exposure for the student’s flash so that they could do combination available light/flash pictures (right). This technique came in handy in the dark barns at Winbak.

The students did an excellent job of “seeing” and went beyond the obvious fact that the barn held approximately 40 trotters and pacers. They focused on the details, producing surprising pictures that give great insights on the horses and the operation.

One warning I passed on was that extreme wide-angle lenses were not the best to photograph horses as it distorts their bodies and you can see why in this picture, where the horse’s head is larger than his withers.

By talking to the horsemen at the farm, the workshoppers learned many fascinating details about the business of breeding horses. The best comment was when one student confided afterwards that she had always been afraid of horses and now that fear was in the past.

Students for the Fall workshop were: Lori Weber, Robert Ullrich, Jamie Simpson, Frederick Gantz, Virginia Phillips and Angela Oates.

These workshops are a revelation for me as well. I look forward to teaching the one in April 2012.

On Tour

Recently, I had the honor of being a visiting artist at the Southwest Wisconsin Fall Art Tour. http://fallarttour.com/ Held the third full weekend each October, the Tour features some of Wisconsin’s best-known artisans who open their studios to allow visitors a unique, behind-the-scenes view into how their work is created.

During the three-day event, I sold prints of the work that you see on this website., Other artisans included painters, sculptors, potters, weavers, jewelers, woodworkers, mixed-media artists, and more.

The weather cooperated for the Tour, and we had over 300 visitors at the No Rules Jewelry Studio in Lone Rock, WI http://norulesjewelry.com/ , which featured my work and that of my sister Maya Madden and her husband, Wayne Farra (pictured below). Clients come from Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis and other nearby locations to see their latest designs and learn how they create their one-of-a-kind jewelry.

I was able to introduce my images to a steady stream of visitors. My nephew, Andrew Dryer (did I say that this was a family affair?), helped out and took the pictures of us presented here. He is an accomplished cinematographer working out of Chicago. http://vimeo.com/andrewdryer

Most popular images in terms of sales were a badger (natch!) , “The Watchman” from Zion National Park, and the Wisconsin image of two Sandhill cranes pictured here.

Many visitors said that they would visit my site and purchase, but perhaps this is the new exit strategy, because most of my recent web sales are not from this group. Perhaps they will reconsider when they come to the Fall Art Tour next year!

Fall in Yellowstone and the Tetons

In October 2011, I went on a “Photo Safari” set up by Rich Clark, a good friend and a fine photographer from Indianapolis, Indiana. http://www.richclarkphoto.com to The Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Parks.

It is high season at these parks during this time of year, as fall color is happening in the Tetons, and elk and moose are in the meadows during their rutting seasons.

“High Season” means that these parks are populated with human beings as well, of which many are photographers. Most of these are serious amateur photographers with expensive telephoto lenses and tripods. There are so many, that one does not need to look for wildlife along the main roads, all one needs to do is come across the traffic jams that the wildlife sightings create.

Rich mentioned that quite a few National Park Rangers become attracted to the job because they would ostensibly be working with wildlife, but at these two parks their real job during this time of year is directing traffic around the wildlife sightings. We did find all the Rangers and park employees that we met to be very engaging with park visitors, and extremely outgoing, friendly and knowledgeable.

The animals that you see in these parks are not tame – note the two deaths this year in Yellowstone NP were attributed to bears – however they are habituated to coexisting with humans. This is especially true at Mammoth Hot Springs where the elk have learned that the manicured grass in town is better eating than the scrub in the hills, so every evening they come to feed.

The famed terraces at Mammoth Hot Springs have been deposited by the calcium-carbonate Terrace Mountain Spring over many years but, due to recent minor earthquake activity, the spring vent has shifted, rendering the terraces dry. Not so good for photography.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_areas_of_Yellowstone

As photographers, we worked from 5:00 AM until well after sundown and did have some magic moments, such as finding this badger in Yellowstone. We were able to make interesting photographs in spite of the number of photographers and the fact that on this trip we did not hike any trails or backpack to the interior of the parks. We stayed mostly on the main roads.

A highlight was to photograph the Grand Prismatic Geyser from the air. This image has been taken by a number of photographers over the years – rendering it a bit of a cliché, but it was a great sight from the air, and we were able to make an interesting photograph from the plane. It felt very strange to be in the aircraft at high noon, as most of the time photographers are airborne in the early morning or late evening, using the shadows to provide dimensionality to the picture. But here, we didn’t want any shadows cast across the geyser basin.

After this trip I understand why the great nature photographers are reluctant to reveal the exact locations of their subjects.

Fifty Feet

Every August for many years, I have gone to the family cottage in Ontario Canada. It provides a change of scenery and a respite from the oppressive mid-Atlantic heat. My kids grew up partaking in the delights of a lakeside cottage, complete with a variety of things to do such as swimming, boating and fishing.

Cottage traditions grew as well. Card games never played at home (euchre, cribbage), picture puzzles and the generic birthday party became some of these customs. For the party, the kids picked wild blackberries and raspberries that decorated a cake that had one candle on top. Everyone sang “Happy Birthday” although it was no one’s “day” and then we all exchanged small gifts with each other.

As a photojournalist, many of my subjects were people. The cottage became a perfect spot for me to look at another aspect of photography: macro. National Geographic Magazine runs few macro (close up) pictures in general interest stories, as there are many subjects to cover in the assigned country/state/city and a macro picture takes away valuable space from a more important part of the story. But at the cottage, it became an opportunity to work with this style of photography.

I came up with a plan. Each year I would take on a fifty-foot by fifteen-foot area of the surrounding terrain and spend some photography time only within those confines. Each year focused on a different “fifty feet”. The ground rules were that I had to be able to see the area from the cottage, that it was a natural setting, and was discerning from the others. In addition, I would photograph only when I wanted to, there be no set schedule or time that I had to be on site.

Over ten years, each summer I embarked on another fifty feet. The subject matter was quite unique: The Beach, The Wetlands, The Forest, Birch Glen, Rock Wall, Underwater!, Rocky Shores, A Small Stream, Sky and Clouds, and Wildflowers.

These images were not taken for publication, but as a photographic exploration. This is the first that they have appeared for public view. I encourage you to take on such a project. It will help hone your photographic technique, and provide a creative outlet that you may have not yet explored.

Reverse Ripple

Birch bark

Underwater