They are both a true blessing for their parents, and it shows: well-mannered, gracious, friendly and a ton of fun. In short: everything I hope my son will grow to be. They never complained about the wind or sun in their eyes, and made my ‘job’ of shooting incredibly easy. The photos speak for themselves.

As a photojournalist by old trade, I say often that photos are meant to tell a story. This shot easily tells the story of the two twins, as well as their own individual sides. The similarities are contrasted by the juxtaposition of their personalities that shine through here. Hint: their smiles tell it all.

Which is the more outgoing? Who is the more devilish of the two? Which one covers their mouth when they laugh?

The next time you bring your camera up and look through the viewfinder, ask yourself what story you’re telling.

EXIF data

Canon 5D Mark ii body, Canon EF 100mm  f/2.8 Macro lens

Exposure: 1/160 second

Exposure bias: 0 EV

Aperture: f/8.0

ISO: 200

Focal length: 100mm

Manual exposure mode, Auto white balance mode

Strobist data: none

So, off to Facebook I went and posted a message about needing a few “guinea pigs” for some fun portrait shoots. I needed to allow myself some fun and my creative side had been sorely neglected from too much left-brained work lately.

I was humbled at both the number and speed of responses. Below is one image from the first shoot on a fairly chilly morning. Bright sun, and an incredibly head-strong wind accompanied us to the waterway.

EXIF data

Canon 5D Mark ii body, Canon EF 70-200mm L  f/4.0 IS USM lens

Exposure: 1/800 second

Exposure bias: 0 EV

Aperture: f/8.0

ISO: 200

Focal length: 187mm

Manual exposure mode, Auto white balance mode

Strobist data: none

Children are subjects I find to be increasingly easy to photograph, especially if you just stand back and let them be themselves. Children, after the initial interest in your gear or what you’re doing, quickly ignore you and move on to the next item of attention. These are the moments I love to capture.

One of the difficulties, however, is when parents or family members tell them to stop what they’re doing and look at the camera. As a photographer and a father, I am torn there. I can certainly appreciate the need for a child to listen and obey. Lord knows I work on that with my own son. And I can also truly appreciate the genuine interest of the parents for their children to be cooperative subjects, as well as their desire to get “that perfect shot.”

What I’ve found with my own son is that my definition of “perfect” has changed drastically (and for the better, I think, from his help). To me, a perfect photo is no longer that well-balanced and posed shot, with all eyes bright and looking into the camera and all details Photoshopped correctly. Rather, I now think the perfect shot is one that captures the essence of who they are, doing exactly what they normally do: being that wonderful little gift from God (flaws, boo-boos, occasional disobedience and all).

EXIF data

Canon 5D Mark ii body, Canon EF 70-200mm L  f/4.0 IS USM lens

Exposure: 1/2500 second

Exposure bias: -2/3 EV

Aperture: f/4.0

ISO: 100

Focal length: 121mm

Aperture Priority exposure mode, Auto white balance mode

Strobist data: none

A lot can be learned from the “old timers,” and a good deal can be positioned by playing your cards close to the chest. Too many people these days let it all hang out. Wear everything on their sleeves. Leave nothing to the imagination.

Now, I’m not talking about areas in need of full disclosure. Rather, I mean engaging your clients, sparking interest in a relationship, negotiating a deal or even simply telling a good yarn. Leave a little something to the imagination: keep at least some whisper of mystery to bring the party back for more.

About the photo: I’ve always been torn in regards to street photography. I love to see it done well, and there are some great examples of it on the Internet. There are also just as many (maybe more) examples of it done poorly, beyond the point of invasive, or without even the slightest notion of compassion for the subject. I’ve always personally approached photography with a respect for the subject, and I carry that mindset into the realm of street photography as well. I think photos should be a celebration of the subject therein, not an exposure (the figurative sense, not literal … obviously a photo is an exposure of light) or a tool of leverage against someone.

EXIF data

Canon 5D Mark ii body, Canon EF 100mm  f/2.8 USM macro lens

Exposure: 1/800 second

Aperture: f/4.0

ISO: 100

Focal length: 100mm

Manual exposure mode, Auto white balance mode

Strobist data: none

Now granted, it’s no substitute for the Bible. But it has a great message, it’s short enough to read in one evening sitting, and it’s written by a great inspirational writer named Richard Bach.

And, whenever I see seagulls I prefer to think of them in the light of Bach’s book rather than how they are (humorously) portrayed in the movie Finding Nemo … “Mine? Mine? Mine? MINE!”

This was shot in a small town waterfront park, where people regularly congregate (and, hence, gulls flock to find opportunities for food). The wind that morning was just shy of howling, and the birds were flying to what seemed to be near the sound barrier. I normally choose to shoot in manual exposure modes, but I can easily recognize a scenario where my mental calculator, my interpretation of the built-in light meter, and my blasted fingers just can’t work quick enough.

This was one of those situations.

I threw the 5D mk ii into Aperture Priority and set it for f/4.0 on the chance there were other birds in the background of where I was focusing. With the camera handling all the metering and shutter speed tasks, I “only” had to focus on the birds. I say “only” because seagulls aren’t generally known for their blazing flight speeds, but a 35+ mph tailwind can really help them get moving.

Finally, shots like this can really bring out the best (and worst) of your on-hand glass. Setting up a shot on a tripod of an inanimate object within the confines of a well-lit studio affords a photographer ample opportunity to make sure the focus is spot-on. Even average lenses can shine in that scenario. Getting a tack-sharp image of a contrast-y bird mid-flight is where the average is quickly separated from the professional-grade glass. And here, the Canon L did a fantastic job.

Post-processing only involved a slight crop and straightening, and a slight tweak to the white balance and blue saturation of the RAW file.

EXIF data

Canon 5D Mark ii body, Canon EF 70-200mm L f/4.0 IS USM lens

Exposure: 1/1250 second

Aperture: f/4.0

ISO: 100

Focal length: 200mm

Aperture Priority exposure mode, Auto white balance mode

Strobist data: none

The story here is that of the gatekeepers (and, perhaps, of capitalism and tourism and a few other -isms). Some very large vessels move through the Intracoastal Waterway where I live. Those boats (if you can call them as such – they are often more like moving warehouses on the water) appear periodically during the day and offer some wonderful opportunities.

I wanted a very light, over-exposed shot to help allude to the scene of a bright summer day. As the ship was coming through the channel, I started focusing and noticed through the viewfinder the pay-per-use binoculars. Instead of waiting for the ship to move past the obstruction, I quickly decided the image would tell more of a story with the binoculars in the shot. As you can see, the binoculars became the main focal point of the story.

I decided to open the aperture a tad more to put the ship into the realm of bokeh, but still in focus enough to easily distinguish that it was a large vessel on the water. With the significant distance between the binoculars and the ship, f/8.0 gave me the depth of field I wanted. Overall, this helped me tell the story of the binoculars – if you want to see the boats out on the water, you’ll need to step up and pay your 50 cents.

With the aperture at f/8.0, the ISO of 100 meant a shutter speed of 1/80 second for the metering I wanted. I was okay with that speed, as it would give a bit more softness to the ship and water (which was going to be slightly out of focus due to the aperture).

With those decisions in place (and the ship quickly moving down the channel), all that was left was to lock focus on the binoculars, recompose the shot for textbook rule of thirds (binocular post on a vertical third, boat and water line on a horizontal third), and release the shutter. Post-processing was mostly left alone with the exception of slight desaturation of the colors (to assist the bright summer day idea).

EXIF data

Canon 5D Mark ii body, Canon EF 70-200mm L f/4.0 IS USM lens

Exposure: 1/80 second

Aperture: f/8.0

ISO: 100

Focal length: 144mm

Manual exposure mode, Auto white balance mode

Strobist data: none

Gaggles of seagulls were active, perching anywhere and everywhere they thought was a decent vantage point for the surveying of food. The shot here (full image at bottom of this page) posed an interesting subject matter to me, aesthetically. As you can see in the shot, there were three main areas of potential exposure metering: the sky, the gull and the sign. Let’s take a look at my decision process.

The angle of approach for this shot was closely into the sun at about 30 degrees to my left. If I were to meter for the sky, I could get a strong silhouette on both the sign and the gull perched above. Taken into post-processing, I could bring up the details of the clouds and punch the blacks (to make sure the silhouette was devoid of details as it should be). While an interesting notion, I thought the photo would lose the story-telling aspect with silhouettes only.

Another option would be to meter for the gull. This would significantly over-expose the sign (though it would likely still remain readable), and completely over-expose the background sky. While the gull is the main subject of the photo, I didn’t want to meter for it for two reasons: 1) the story here, to me, is the interaction between the gull and the sign, and 2) exposing for the gull would place it and the sign against an almost pure white background (pulling it out of context of their surroundings, as if I shot it against a white backdrop).

So, the answer for me (in the vast eight to ten seconds I had before the gull flew off after its next suspected meal) was to expose for the sign (mostly). Note that I underexposed the metering of the sign slightly to punch its colors a bit as well as give the gull a silhouette “feel.” The slight under-exposure was furthered in post-processing with a change to the contrast.

I hope these notes have made you think a bit about the options you have when metering a given shot. As always, comments and questions are welcomed (and encouraged) below in the comments section!

Happy shooting.

EXIF data

Canon 5D Mark ii body, Canon EF 70-200mm L f/4.0 IS USM lens

Exposure: 1/640 second

Aperture: f/8.0

ISO: 100

Focal length: 200mm

Manual exposure mode, Auto white balance mode

Strobist data: none

Set them too low, and the achievements are hollow. You don’t really push yourself if you have “easy” targets. Motivation dwindles and you lose steam quickly. Set your goals too high, and discouragement will set in. You become trapped in a self-defeating cycle, beat yourself up, and negative emotions start replacing the drive to succeed. Eventually, you give up from frustration.

So, there’s definitely a delicate balance to setting a mark high enough to make you grow but realistic at the same time.

To quote Jim Jones (“Summer Wit Miami” from Harlem: Diary of a Summer), “I say that to say this.” I set a goal for myself less than two months ago, and I thought about it pretty hard before committing myself. I thought it was far-reaching. Too High goal category. Like, stratosphere-high. I gave myself a year to achieve it, but I often questioned if that was truly realistic.

I aimed to hit Explore on the photo site Flickr.com.

For those unfamiliar with Explore, it is the top 500 photos based on “interestingness” from Flickr algorithms. No one knows the exact formula for it (aside, of course, from the gear-heads at Flickr). The top 500 doesn’t sound like a huge deal until you understand that Flickr had 5 billion photos added to its site as of September 2010, and an average of over 3 million photos each day to the site. For the mathematically challenged, 500 from 3,086,420 (the daily average in 2010) is 0.0161999987% (or, less than two hundredths of one percent).

Like I said, I was going to give myself a year to have a photo reach the heights of Explore. I’ve been on Flickr since February of 2009, and in the past two and a half years I really only used the site for online storage of large photo files and inspiration for my own photography. Being that it’s far and away one of the most popular photo sharing sites on the Web, there are a ton of crazy-good photogs there, and I looked through thousands of photos trying to better my own. The site also has a very, very good social aspect for photographers (pro and hobbyist and everyone in-between) to meet and mingle.

Lately, I’ve been running into brick walls with the wonky way Flickr stores (and renames) photos for cloud storage. So about two months ago (when I started kicking my photography into a much higher gear) I turned to Flickr solely for the inspirational and social aspects. That’s when I decided to go for Explore.

I hit Explore today.

I am extremely thankful for it, and I know the Lord brought that into my life. When I first found out, it was an incredibly surreal experience for me. My initial reaction was “no, that’s not right … that couldn’t have happened.” I was a bit stunned — I didn’t quite know how I was supposed to feel. I was surprised, stupefied, elated, curious … you name it.

Finally, then, I asked myself “now what?”

I think sometimes I sell myself short in my own mind. I see myself as mostly realistic, but sometimes you just have to step up to the plate and point that baseball bat to far left field.

Then, grip it and rip it.

My approach here was to capture a majestic, if over-powering, view of a street lamp. The shot was late afternoon, with some whispy clouds in the background. The deep blue of the sky would (and may yet, still) make for a powerful color shot. However, in pulling it down to monochrome I was able to get more of the silhouette feel I was after. Wide angle was the best choice when standing very close and looking up. I didn’t want to be directly under the lamp, however, to keep some interest in the bulb housing and light-play that was going on with the shading there.

Everything else was pretty straight forward for me. Line up the shot, take a few exposures to make sure I had one in sharp focus, and tweak a bit in post-processing. If you have any questions or ideas, share them in the comments section!

Happy shooting.

EXIF data

Canon 5D Mark ii body, Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM lens

Exposure: 1/160 second

Aperture: f/8.0

ISO: 100

Focal length: 35mm

Manual exposure mode, Auto white balance mode

Strobist data: none

Yes, I’ll grant you they are a one-trick animal when compared to their multi-length brethren. But oh, what a damn good trick they do.

First, the bad news: they are limited when compared to a zoom lens. They can also make you miss that perfect moment if you can’t physically move forward or back to frame the shot correctly before it’s gone. They are ill-suited for dynamically moving subjects. And, they require a greater amount of lens changing to get the correct focal length on your camera for a particular shot (which can introduce more dust and moisture into your camera).

With all that out of the way, let’s dive into why they are my go-to lenses more often than not.

Foremost of the prime lenses’ highlights is the wider apertures available in comparison to zooms. F-stops of 1.8 are commonplace territory for prime lenses, with 1.2 featured on several (albeit at a premium price). For fans of bokeh, a prime lens is the best way to really get a significantly blurred background without shattering your bank account.

Speaking of bank accounts, we come to the second great feature of primes: their value. Prime lenses have less moving parts, so the cost is less for the lens. The corollary is that, if you spend as much money as you would on a comparable zoom, you are getting better glass due to the ratio of cost on parts. Also, Canon and Nikon both have a wonderful 50mm prime for approximately $125 new.

The third feature of primes is the quality of the image. As the major camera manufacturers have been making prime lenses for much longer than zooms, the technology curve is much lower as they’ve come farther and closer to optical perfection (especially with the 50mm focal length).

Another, more abstract, benefit to using a prime is that it’s more of a cerebral approach to photography. Several novices with a zoom lens attached (especially a fairly cheap 75-300mm lens) plant their feet as if rooted to the earth and shoot/zoom/shoot/zoom without ever moving. A prime makes you become more active, moving around to frame a shot. This movement inherently also makes the shooter look around the scene, and opens the doors to finding different angles and approaches to the subject.

So, if you’ve never dipped your toes into the prime waters pick up a moderately priced “nifty fifty” and see the world through a totally different vantage point. You’ll also be able to do your own Project 50 – a series of fifty consecutive days of creating days creating one image each with a 50mm lens. Doing that often leads to the grand-daddy of photo projects — the Project 365!