Category Archives: Workshops

Patience Makes For Better Pictures

I was going to call this blog “Waiting It Out”, but the term that Chris Johns, the Editor of the National Geographic and a photographer uses is “circling back”.

What Chris means by this is that the perfect time to capture the subject in front of you may not be now. It may happen in a few minutes, a few hours, days or never. The important thing is to have faith that this particular subject will make a fine photograph, because it speaks to you as being something of importance.

One and a Half Hours

15 Min. Later

At Seashore

This does not mean the subject is “newsworthy”, an amazing scene, or a fantastic event. It just speaks to you. This gives it importance. And if it is really important, are you ready to walk away because the light isn’t right, the subjects aren’t in place or you need to be someplace else?

Fred Maroon, a fine Washington, DC photographer said, “There is always another plane”. It is a good way of saying that many great images take patience to make them.

Four Days

During all of my workshops I spend some time talking about managing one’s photographic expectations. If you are with a non-photographer or on a tour or heavily scheduled, you have little opportunity to hang back and wait.

And it can be tiresome waiting at a particular location for hours – especially with wildlife, as the moment you were waiting for generally happens very quickly and you cannot stay focused (pun intended) for long time periods. Frans Lanting, a terrific wildlife photographer was once asked how he stays focused to make those wonderful shots. His answer? “Ninety five percent of the time I miss it!”

Two Seconds!

To keep fresh, do as Chris Johns says and circle back. Leave that location for a bit and then come back to it. But remember to return, as perseverance pays. An article was once done or several of the photographers at National Geographic and after the author interviewed us she entitled the article “A Terrifying Dedication.”

Five Months

Throughout this blog I have posted a number of images with captions that indicate the “wait times” necessary to capture the image.

Join me for a domestic or international workshop where there is a continuing conversation on subjects like this.

Fragile Landscapes and US Bureau of Land Management Solutions

As a photographer, I am interested in unusual landscapes and recently visited the Vermillion Cliffs National Monument, a 280,000-acre property administered by The Bureau of Land Management (BLM). One hot spot for photographers is “The Wave”, a mesmerizing set of sandstone formations in northern Arizona eroded by water and wind.

The Wave at Coyote Buttes North, Arizona

The expansion of the Internet has publicized The Wave – specifically thorough the proliferation of images and video available on the web. In addition, an article on the Vermillion Cliffs in the February 2012 issue of the National Geographic Magazine sparked the interest in The Wave and other nearby formations for millions of their readers.

Given this publicity, the challenge is how to keep too many visitors from spoiling the place.

The BLM is a federal agency that is responsible for the stewardship of 245 million acres of public land in the United States. The agency employs 10,000 individuals full time, but doing the math, this is about 2,500 acres of land per employee. And like the US Forest Service, a great percentage of BLM land is designated “multipurpose”.

The tag line for the Forest Service is “Land of Many Uses”, which has been tweaked by environmentalists to “Land of Many Abuses”. In many of their operations, the BLM is a contender for this title.

However, in June of 2000, The National Landscape Conservation System was set up. It consists of 27 million acres of the most pristine landscapes and ecosystems that are under the purveyance of the BLM, including the Vermillion Cliffs. These areas are primarily in the Western and Southwestern US. After the formation of these Conservation Lands, the BLM incorporated many of the tenants of responsible tourism with their administration of these remarkable resources.

Several methods are used to minimize wear and tear from tourists traveling to sensitive/fragile areas.

• Education (stay on trails, don’t litter, etc.)

• High fees (high entry fees limit people to those who can afford to go)

• Limit official access (establish restricted areas where permits are needed)

• Limit publicity (difficult for potential visitors to discover location)

• Difficult terrain (hard location to get to, need to hike in or have special vehicle)

In view of this list of ways to mitigate visitor traffic, how could the BLM respond to the high demand for visits to The Wave? Not by regulating publicity (out of their control) or high fees. The monument is a national treasure, and as such the government is reluctant to charge high fees to visit it. $7.00 is the cost for a one-day permit.

Required pack tag to be in restricted area

So, to their credit, the BLM limits the number of visitors to The Wave to 20 per day and has instituted a lottery – ten from their website and ten from applicants that arrive in person for the next day’s allotment. If you are interested in the details for applying you can go here.

Competition is fierce. For instance, the number of online applicants for April 19, 2014 is 257 and the maximum number of people allowed is six per applicant. So far 975 people are listed who want to go (an applicant can have from one to six people in their application – 10 total will go). For reference, individuals attempting to obtain a permit for April-June and September-November, the odds were about 4-5% for 2013. The $5.00 application fee is non-refundable.

Another of the responsible-tourism tenants is education, and part of the Vermillion Cliffs application is a professionally-done17 minute video that deals with safety, trails, protection of the environment, etc. You cannot continue the application without checking a box that confirms you watched the video.

Sunset at White Pocket, Vermillion Cliffs, Arizona

Lastly, the difficulty of the terrain plays a part here. The Wave is a three-mile hike from the road with a large portion of it marked only by cairns. At the southern end of the Vermillion Cliffs Monument, the roads are sand, and every time a vehicle gets stuck (hundreds of times) that area becomes a sand pit. You can’t believe what the advertisements say about your four-wheeled drive vehicle – many of them won’t make this trip.

Fragile Rock Fins

Once you have won the lottery and are at these locations, you’ll see how fragile these formations are. Most have Navaho sandstone rock “fins” which are easy to snap off. Hundreds of years in the making – gone in a second.

The BLM will receive a $6 million increase from the federal government for the National Landscape Conservation System in 2014. If the BLM continues policies that promote responsible tourism, this is good news.

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.

At the Workshop — Timing is Everything

Recently I taught a Horizon workshop in Chesapeake City, Maryland. The object of this particular workshop is to collectively undertake a photographic story of this charming little village at the midsection of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. The town is filled with historic buildings – many restored to reflect their mid-1800 beginnings. We had fine weather and were able to photograph a variety of subject matter.

During our first sessions, I tried to instill in the students how important it is to know how your camera operates so that it becomes second nature to you. Then you will be ready to take a good picture at a moment’s notice. I stressed that much of the photography we are enamored by happened in the blink of the eye (or shutter, in our case).

On the way to Winbek Horse Farms, a trotter and pacer enterprise, we passed a large number of people working on a residence. Turning around, we found out that it was a “Christmas in April” event. We were happy to serendipitously come across “Christmas” and we all made some nice images of the scene (right). Timing is everything

Once at the farm, we went out to the track to practice slow shutter speed shots of the horses training (panning). Suddenly two drivers (left) appeared on sulkies running their horses as if in an actual race.

Timing is everything

I was instructing the class in how to use a dedicated flash on the camera by lowering the exposure of the flash. One student was taking a portrait of a horse in its stall when a bird flew past the horse’s head (right). The flash froze the bird in mid-flight. Photo by John Lauritsen Timing is everything

On Sunday morning we were at the Bethel AME Church services in Chesapeake City. In order to keep the decorum in the church, we do not use flash, and only one student at a time is in the sanctuary. At one point, the Reverend asked everyone to join hands in prayer (left). Just one workshopper was in the church, and she was ready.

Photo by Esther Steffens

Timing is everything