 |
“I’ve
had workshop participants tell me that they learn more by simply
watching me in the field for five minutes.” By Ira J. Schneller
One photo often isn't enough. “Why are you taking so many pictures of the same flowers without changing the composition?” someone asks. “Because the wind is blowing.” “But won’t all your pictures be blurry?” “Maybe. Maybe not.” One or two could be sharp enough if I catch a moment between gusts. I’ll never know unless I try.” During that evening’s critique session, I do have a sharp flower picture from the effort. Of course it’s not 100 percent sharp everywhere. It was composed to have the flowers with the shortest stems, which move less in the wind, in the foreground, so that the ones most apt to blur would be less obvious. Graduated filters don't always vignette with a polarizer! Another encounter in the field: “What lens are you using with that graduated filter?” “My 17-35 mm at 17mm,” I reply. “How can that be? All my wide angles below 24mm vignette the corners with grad filters.” “Not if you buy an extra Cokin filter holder and trim it down to have one filter slot instead of three and all four corners cut back so they won’t get in your picture.” “But of course you aren’t using a polarizer!” “I am, but it’s not an off-the-shelf one. I fitted it to a 77mm Cokin adapter ring. That way it works on my 17mm lens with a graduated filter too.” SLR viewfinders are bidirectional. “Why do you shade the eye piece with your hand when you are about to take a picture?” “I learned a long time ago that light travels both ways through a through-the-lens camera. Light enters through the lens and the eye piece affecting the exposure. It’s a two-way street.” Tale of a tripod. For more years than I’d like to admit, the lowest joint of my tripod legs kept jamming up with dirt and sand. It seemed to be an inevitable consequence of shooting in wet or dirty places where that last joint sat on the ground whenever the smallest legs weren’t extended. It turned out to be most of the time, since using your tripod at the lowest possible setting is always the most sturdy. Then one day I needed to set my tripod into a few inches of water at Pecks Pond in the Pocono Mountains to frame just the right composition. I extended the bottom legs just enough to keep the joints above the water. When I went to put my tripod away, I decided not to close up all the mud and sand into the joints, but to wait until I could wash it off at home. As I congratulated myself for not messing up the joints, I thought why not leave those lower legs extended a few inches as standard practice. Virtually nothing from the ground would ever be able to get into those joints again, and the tripod wouldn’t lose much stability. Last autumn, however, I did get those lower joints fully wet on a cold morning before a sunrise at Ricketts Glen State Park. A thick fog was rolling in over Lake Jean and I was trying to catch a reflection. I stood on the shore with my 17-35mm lens at 17mm, searching for the perfect composition to encompass the broad cloud display. The wind was blowing, and there were moving tree limbs along the shoreline on both sides of my picture, no matter where I stood. As the light peaked, I had to make a fast decision. I could use a more conventional 28mm focal length that would crop out the trees, but lose the drama of the cloud display. I could shoot the wider scene with blurred limbs. I could give up. Or…you guessed it: I waded into the lake, shoes and all, and clunked my tripod long enough to make an image that later became a prized print. Shivering for a few minutes was worth it, and my tripod dried off like new. Plan ahead. When a situation has the potential to be fast-breaking, the most important technical tip I can give is to begin with a “preflight.” That’s what I call the process of placing everything in your camera bag exactly where you always keep it, as well as checking every setting on your camera in advance. If I fail to go through this process, I inevitably grab a camera body that I’ve forgotten to reset to the right ISO, forgotten to turn off the spot meter setting or, worse yet, forgotten to reload film or a flash card. That’s when being in the right place at the right time doesn’t make any difference. How
did I learn my bag of tricks? Many came from observing other photographers
at work. Back in the ‘70s when I started out, there weren’t
color nature photography workshops, and I never took a photography
class. I made a point to go out in the field with people more experienced
than I was, watch closely and ask the right questions. |
Ira and club members (except the fox) in the field:
|
The “Outdoor” Classroom
|
|