Photo-Walk – JWNPhoto.com

Articles Tagged with: Photo-Walk

Photo Walking In Historic Charleston

Worldwide Photowalk 2014 - Charleston SC

Welcome to the 300th post on my blog! I’ve had some posts here that have been pretty popular, a lot that have been virtually ignored, and hopefully some that have struck a chord with my readers.

But this isn’t about that, this is about Scott Kelby’s Worldwide Photowalk 2014. Just take a look at this crew of local photographers who ventured out on the historic streets of the lower Charleston peninsula:

Weather-wise, it may have been the most perfect day ever conceived. It was like San Francisco perfect. I brought my daughter again this year, and she invited 4 of her art-school friends who all took to the streets in true teenage fashion.

I was sporting my trusty Fuji X-T1 camera, and my approach this year was a little different than the past. Possibly because I was herding 5 teenage girls around, or maybe because I was carrying a smaller camera, but I just let the pictures come to me instead of seeking them out. Plus, I was able to get the girls involved to make a memorable and creative experience with them.

Using the environment to influence a photo, I was able to setup a shot with the girls, but then this woman walked into the frame walking this massive dog, making for a cool street photo:

It’s pretty common this time of year to see another photographer earning their living by shooting a beautiful couple. When I stumbled upon this scene, I thought to myself, “What better street photo in the French Quarter than one of a wedding photographer at work?”

Cooler still, the entourage had a limousine complete with a silver-haired driver in a tuxedo. I asked the driver if I could make a portrait of him, and asked him to stand naturally just like he was before I approached him:

My favorite shot of the walk came by the harbor in the reeds. I saw this cool lone purple flower in the reeds and decided to get low and shoot it. One of the girls came walking into frame and this photo came together – I asked her to turn around and look back in my direction to capture this:

Strange thing about this photo – It became one of the most viewed photos of all of the photos in my Flickr stream overnight. Sometimes the less you try to create something special, the more likely something special will present itself to you. You just need to have the eyes to see it when it happens and enough skill to capture it in a concise fashion that lets the photo do the talking. As Seneca once said, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

World Wide Photo Walk Charleston 2013

Today was the 6th annual World Wide Photo Walk organized annually by Scott Kelby. I’ve been walking in these for a few years now, check out this and this. Last year my daughter joined me and she had a blast, so she signed up once again for this year’s event.

Last year we did the evening walk at Shem Creek, so this year we went on the morning walk in historic downtown Charleston. We started out in Waterfront park and made are way through the streets of the lower peninsula.

To shake things up this year, I decided to stick with one fixed length lens. My choice? A 50mm f/1.4.

Only having one lens to choose from at one focal length is quite freeing. I had to pick my shots carefully and instead of working it and solving problems like I do on a daily basis, I either had a shot, or I didn’t. My feet are my zoom, and there are no ultra wide angles either. Just one normal focal range. It’s kind of like drawing with just one pencil. The limitations free you up to keep it simple. And that’s what most of the shots I took reflect.

My first lesson for my daughter was to isolate the subject. “How?” she asked. Composition. Move around until you can see just the subject of the photo with the least amount of distractions.

Lesson two was to look for contrasts. Big and small, light and dark, and also contrasting colors. Reds and blues are one of my favorite. Add some green, and I’m excited!

I did look for some people to shoot as well. A mother and daughter were sitting in a pastry shop that we had stopped in to grab a drink in. I was taking a shot of my coffee cup and the mom said, “Why don’t you take a picture of us? We’re more interesting than an inanimate object!” I couldn’t agree more. She then said I should Instagram it. Unfortunately Nikon hasn’t figured out how to post to Instagram from their DSLR’s directly, but that didn’t stop me from giving her some instant gratification. iPhone to the rescue!

@skyfran 's mom told me to post this. I don't know these ladies! #wwpw #wwph2013 #CHS #strangers #streetphotography

I saw this guy power-washing a building and loved how the spray was glowing in the sun:

We took a detour looking for some graveyards because my daughter wanted to shoot an angel statue. She said it was because of the “Weeping Angels” from Doctor Who. Who am I to say no? Unfortunately, all of the cemeteries that we went to were chained up. As we were leaving the walk, we came up this awesome little magic shop, and guess what was outside?

I guess it was magic? Whatever you believe, I had a great time shooting with my kid. You can see all of the shots I took in this Flickr set.

Walking With The D800

21st Century Photography Group Photo Walk

Warning: Nerdy Photographer Talk Below

After Nikon announced the D800, I started watching for the D700 prices to fall enough to where I felt justified in purchasing a previous generation body. But the day after I rented a D800 from CharlestonAVGear for a wedding I found myself placing an order for Nikon’s newest (and IMO finest) camera.

Then I started reading the various photography forums and panic started to creep in because it appeared that I might not get this camera until August!

I had a delivery estimate from Amazon, and then early last week the estimate vanished and was replaced with “unknown”. Gahh! I started following this thread on NikonRumors because some posters were letting people know when various retailers had stock available. I got lucky on Tuesday morning because someone posted that NikonUSA.com had them listed in stock. I quickly ordered one and moments after I placed my order they were listed as out of stock again. Regardless, on Wednesday morning I had the new camera in hand! The funny thing was that I got a notice from another fine camera retailer, Robertscamera.com, later in the day on Wednesday that they had some in stock, so I shared that info on the Nikonrumors forum that helped me out and some other shooters were able to get D800’s from them. Paying back on the forum that helped you is a good recipe for internet karma. And as of now it seems that a lot of people are getting the camera’s they’ve had on back-order for months, so I am assuming that the supply is reaching the level of demand to some degree.

So, I was itching to go out and use my new tool, since it’s a very different animal than my previous body. The local photography group, the 21st Century Photography Group, was hosting a photo-walk at the College of Charleston on Sunday. A perfect opportunity!

I brought my son Kegan along, who was shooing with my P7000.

Unfortunately it was quite hot and he was not feeling the whole walking part of the photo-walk. He did get a box of crackers to snack on, but even that couldn’t sooth the savage Kegan 😉

I’ve been shooting with a cropped sensor for so long now that switching to a new full-frame sensor is introducing a whole new way for me to approach the things I am used to. The focal lengths are now properly represented, so my 50mm lens is a true 50mm instead of the 80mm equivalent on a cropped sensor camera. This means I’ve got to get closer! That has the effect of decreasing the available depth of field, so focusing properly is crucial. The 36 mega-pixel sensor in the D800 also brings another challenge: The resolution is so high that it is not forgiving at all if you have bad technique hand-holding the camera. You can see the effects of camera shake when you view things at the full resolution. Luckily, most people aren’t viewing your images like that, but I think it’s a valuable thing because it challenges you to improve your technique!

It’s not easy changing the class of bodies either. My D90 is laid out very differently than the D800, so I’m constantly hitting the wrong buttons because they’re not where I’m used to finding them. That’s OK, it’s only a matter of going out and shooting as much as possible that will quickly remedy it. I did have some moments of panic when shooting a wedding with it, but I’ll talk more about that in a future post.

I can’t wait to shoot some studio stuff with this camera. The resolution is so amazing. I’ll be sure to write another post soon about that experience. For now, I’m buried with post-processing from previous shoots. The good news is that my computer seems to be dealing with the giant NEF RAW files from the D800 quite well, so one of my biggest fears has been put to bed. It does take a tremendous amount of time uploading the full resolution jpegs to Flickr though, but that’s something I can happily deal with 😉

On a side note, I checked out one of Apple’s new Retina Display MacBook Pro’s this afternoon. Holy Balls. My D800 photos look even better on that thing than I could have imagined. It looks like I’m going to need to book a bunch of these real soon!