emonome

The lazy later guide to photography is simply: work a little harder now, compose your shots, and try and get your shot with a few attempts. Therefore, instead of having hundreds and hundreds of photos to sort through later, you’ll have dozens to choose from - but most likely good ones.
When I went for the Highbridge Park photo walk, I had a 512 MB card. After the day was done, I still had space left in it; I didn’t - couldn’t afford to - shoot RAW, then. I had the same cam and card for my NYC Marathon pics. For my Brooklyn Bridge walk, I used 3 and a half 1GB cards.  Not only did I chuck 3/4 of those pics, I sat on them for weeks before picking my shots to edit. Trust me, good shots get buried under the crappy ones. On top of that, looking at a lot of crappy photos can be depressing. So, a little bit of care gets me better shots.

I don’t, however, go nuts with framing and angles. As soon as I see a subject or object, I see the angle and I see the shot. In short, I simply try to freeze the image I see with my eyes and not “let’s keep pressing and changing focus and what happy accidents come out of it”. My photos reflect how I see the world, weird angles and colors and all. It’s like a baker ’seeing’ the bread when (s)he’s looking at an open bag of flours. Yes, similar to that ‘I take out the unnecessary parts’ story.

There’s another factor that works well for the way I take pictures. Flexible focusing. Rarely do I go fishing for lobster but take a chance on some shrimps cuz the nets are out anyway.  I know I’m going for lobsters (substitute with Brooklyn Bridge) so I plan to take anything that it sees and anything that people see in it. Yes, the bridge sees the Statue of Liberty. Yes, that little kid waving the Amercian flag has a great angle of the bridge. I almost see the bridge  longing to touch its neighbor, the Manhattan bridge. That longing can be shot with some nice, cool angles.

Some people can see that longing. Some just want shots to impress other photographers. It shows in their pictures.  “That photo has a nice personality!” is a compliment. Photography is what you see and how you see it. Everyone else’s take on your pictures. is just his/her fucking opinion.

I’ve talked about how inspiring a Joe McNally talk can be but nothing beats being there. The next best thing…

Scott Kelby and Matt Kloskowski at B&H this Monday, May 5th. Why oh why did it have to be on a Monday!!

p.s. Whyyyyy!!!

That title just offered itself up. Elementary Telephotography by Ernest Marriage (1901) may be the first book on the subject [10 mins. later - not quite true - Dallmeyer wrote a book although mostly about the physics of telephotography], although articles have been written some time before the publication. Chapter 3, after the first two were devoted to the construction of telephoto lenses, gets into the fun stuff. Notice the words “snap shots” in there? I wonder what snap shots meant to photogs back then.

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As expected, telephoto lenses were used for similar reasons as today. What about this shot? The early Paparazzo?

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Using a hat to screen incoming light? Been there, done that.

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Wildlife photographers, as they do today, cherished the telephoto lenses.

Hey, this cow dude is wildlife to me.

Lastly, check out this ad. The metal construction looks hot! Looks like it could fit right on my Rebel XTi.

Of course, I thank you a million times, deary, for giving me this gift. And you know it brought a tear or two to mine eyeses. But I have to - which I should have the first time - thank folks at B&H who’ve shown me, once again, why this place rocks! The two hours or so I’ve spent asking question and question, they’ve answered them all and more. Usually when you go buy electronics at other stores the sales guy will play the ‘expensive is better’ card and dump stuff on you that makes you feel like the morning after a one-night stand - a whore!

I wasn’t sure what lens to get, what card reader to get, or pretty much, what any accessories to choose from; I only knew I wanted an XTi. The guy - wish I asked him to spell his name; I’ll ballpark it as ‘Nooy’ (somebody know him, please let me know the right sp) - demoed various lenses on an XTi, explained why one has a better advantage over the other and, get this, looked up deals that would save me money on this purchase. In short, I left happy. He’d also given several tips on the camera, batteries, etc and which carrying case would fit the camera right for the dollar. The guy who helped me at the carrying case section asked what I was looking for in a case and he pointed me to an even better case that fit my needs and for a cheaper price.

Let a store help you buy what you need when you yourself don’t know what it is? I would B, and H…both…anyday