Three Tips For New Wedding Photographers

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Master Photographer

I used to shoot weddings. I actually enjoyed doing it. I made a great deal of money doing it and met some nice people. But it’s very hard work and requires serious dedication. Many photographers avoid doing weddings for these reasons.

For those of you who want to break into the wedding market I’ll share three things with you that I wish I would have known before I took the leap.

1. Being a wedding photographer has MUCH more to do with being able to establish, and maintain good relationships than it does photography. You can be the best technically-gifted photographic artist on the planet and if the bride, the groom, the family or the wedding party all think you are a jerk – you will fail. This is a people business NOT a photography business. If you are a photographer of average quality but have above-average people skills, you will outsell and out-book the extraordinarily talented, but unfriendly wedding photographer every time. If you are not a people person – don’t go into the wedding business unless you can hire a people person as an intermediary.

Oh and I’ll piggy back on this tip by saying find the mean grandma at the wedding and get her to smile for the camera. There is ALWAYS a mean grandma and if you can get her to smile, get a photo of it and share it with the bride, she’ll love you forever. Really!

2. Have a plan, a backup plan and a backup plan for your backup plan. Spend significant time thinking about how you want to capture the day, then plan out how you will do it. Make sure you know the location. If you’ve never been there – go ahead of time and scout it. Scout it during the hours that match the wedding time frame. Meet the officiants. Learn about any local laws, rules, customs or traditions that you’ll need to be aware of. Make sure the gear you have will work in this particular situation and then make sure you have three of everything you might possibly need. Stuff breaks – usually during a wedding. Plan for every possible contingency. Have backup transportation for you and even the bride. I’ve seen more than one limo company leave a bride stranded because the offer of a better payday came around. Think through what you need to know in advance and be ready. This is a one-time deal. There are no do-overs in wedding photography. Be prepared.

3. Be friendly, be considerate, be caring, be careful, be insightful, be cordial, be friendly, but BE IN CHARGE! The one thing that you will quickly learn is that if the pictures don’t work, it won’t matter whose fault that was – YOU will be blamed. If the caterer, the DJ, the cake maker, etc., screw up and that screw up somehow impacts your pictures there will NOT be an asterisk by the photo saying “If only the DJ hadn’t dimmed the lights this would be a great shot!”

This varies GREATLY by market and budget but there are fewer wedding coordinators these days than in the old days. Where there is no wedding coordinator, many couples, especially young couples, will look to the photographer for leadership. When that happens, take charge. Be mindful that this is their special day and make allowances for that every way you can but also make sure that the cake is on the wall under the nice lighting, and that the window curtains remain open at sunset so that the nice warm light can be used as window lighting, etc. You get the point. You need to make sure that you love up the bride and her party but you also need to remember she hired you to make her look good. It’s YOUR job – nobody else’s job. Don’t take it if you can’t be a leader. That’s what good photographers do. They lead. They protect the bride. They protect her memories. They don’t let ANYTHING get in the way of her special day and they NEVER say “that’s not my job.”

Shooting weddings can be fun, lucrative and rewarding. I could give you 1000 more tips but start with these three. If you can get these three right you’ll save yourself 1000000 problems.

Good luck.

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Three Solutions for Working with a Resistant Photographic Subject.

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Master Photographer

Guest Post and Photo by Tamara Lackey – Follow Tamara on Twitter - twitter.com/tamaralackey

One of the more difficult things for a portrait photographer to do is start the shoot with a resistant subject. You can light them stunningly well, pose them beautifully, and place them against the most perfect backdrop ever – but if your subject is not choosing to engage in the experience of being photographed, it’s quite difficult to achieve your best portrait work.

What’s a ready-to-go shooter to do?

1. Get to the root of the resistance. Are they self-conscious? Have they had a bad / boring / harrowing previous experience?

With adults – and children – I ask them quite directly. I ask them to specifically tell me the details of their previous experience, and then I try to get to the root of why it was so detrimental. I will close the discussion by explaining, in exhausting and often humorous detail, just how this particular experience will not mirror any previous negative ones.

2. Are you automatically hearing from your subject that he or she never looks good in photographs?

Many people have a self-image that conflicts with how positively others view them. One of the perks of this job is to show another how you beautifully you see them – and how you can enhance that through great lighting and posing.

An excellent tool at your disposal is the act of mirroring. Show them how you think they’d look best – play with various expressions and engage them through your sincere interest in truly wanting to show off their best attributes. Tell them they need do nothing but mimic at first. As long as you’re willing to play along, that takes the pressure off of them – and, if shooting digitally, you can show them how you are actually getting attractive photographs of them, which does wonders to boost confidence.

3. Are they simply running in the opposite direction?

This applies frequently to children and pets. Hopefully not as much to brides – but there’s a lot of pressure out there, so you can’t really rule that possibility out in all cases.

With children and pets, I let them get it out of their system – often encouraging more running and activity right out of the gate, if I see that’s what they need. In terms of the photographer, this requires a good sense of perspective, a basic understanding of the sheer power of bottled-up energy, and an active willingness to wait for the right moment.

With brides, it’s a whole different issue and usually one best suited for a relationship counselor. And that’s pretty awesome because, every so often, it’s nice to know that we photographers don’t have to do everything.

A New Way For Photographers To Self-Publish

Posted on January 21, 2012 by Master Photographer

Apple officially unveiled iBooks this week. Apple also announced a free tool to make these books called iBooks Author, which is available now. The free iBooks Author program is available in the iTunes App Store. The books can be distributed free or at a cost of up to $14.99 each.

Apple’s new digital books feature a much more rich and interactive components than existing, consumer-focused e-books. You can include photos of course, but you can also include galleries, pages with video, rich 3D graphics, multitouch support, HTML support, thumbnail-based navigation and more.

To see a free video demo of how the new author application works, check out this iBooks Author video by Apple. There are several templates to choose from. You can make your own and you can already buy third-party iBook templates at http://www.ibooksauthortemplates.com/. I expect others to follow suit very, very soon.

To make an iBook, you simply drag and drop the content into the iBook software and then click a button to publish. Currently, your choices are to publish to a PDF – which anyone can read, or you can publish for the iPad. There are approximately 30-40 million iPads in use right now and that market is expected to grow at least 20% in the next year. This means tens of millions of people will have access to your content.

Using this application, you are in effect the author and Apple is the publisher. As with any publishing agreement you have to agree to things like exclusivity, and Apple gets a 30% cut.

Of course, the Apple haters are up in arms about this announcement. They don’t like the exclusivity agreement or the fact that Apple gets a cut. It’s unreasonable – as well as just plain stupid – to assume that Apple would spend years and tons of money developing, distributing, advertising, and eventually operating the iBook Store – and then not plan to generate revenue from it. A 70-30 split is a great deal for the authors. If you have ever seen a traditional book deal, you know know that exclusivity is ALWAYS required and authors make a much smaller percentage than 70%.

I should also mention that the usual anti-Apple trolls are spreading all sorts of misinformation about this new platform. Let me debunk a few of the more prominent falsehoods I’ve seen on the Interwebs.

First – Apple doesn’t claim any Copyright over your work nor does using their tool impact your intellectual property rights. Anyone claiming otherwise is dead wrong. Additionally, if you decide to give away the books you make with this software free of charge, you can do so anywhere, any way and in any format you like without involving Apple in any way. Period. You give Apple nothing – you give up nothing – Apple has no control. Again, claims to the contrary are utterly false.

The licensing agreement associated with this product is not unusual nor nefarious. My own book deal with Random House for Going Pro: How to Make the Leap from Aspiring to Professional Photographer serves as a great example. My new book with my pal Skip Cohen costs around $18 on Amazon. The cover price is $29.99. I get a whopping $1.00 for each book sold. My math is rusty but I am pretty sure that’s a whole great big bunch less than the 70% I’d get to keep under the terms of the iBook deal. It took 22 months from the first conversation we had with Random House until “GoingPro” was in stores. The publisher took about a year to edit, design and print the book. I had no control over that process once the manuscript was submitted. When I publish with iBooks I will have complete creative control and the book can be done and published in the same day.

Apple has legitimate business reasons for setting up the program the way they did and they don’t need to apologize for them. But there are also good technology reasons for the decision to close the system. By keeping the system closed, they reduce the chances for piracy, viruses, malware and poor execution on lesser third-party platforms – things for which Apple would be certainly be blamed even if it wasn’t their fault and even if it was out of their control.

If you can look past the misinformation, and think about this new opportunity with an open mind, I think you’ll be as excited about it as I am. I am publishing all my future books using this platform. Unless I decide to do a big picture coffee table book as a piece of art, I’m done with printed books. They are slow and expensive to produce. They cost a lot to ship, take up lots of room, are hard on the environment, and are published by an industry that’s stuck in the dark ages. Traditional book deals make everyone but the author money. It’s time that creatives got paid what they are worth. The iBook platform makes that possible. And there’s more…

If you call the offices of Random House (or any big publisher in New York) and try to pitch your next photo how-to book or picture book or photo essay or whatever, you’ll have about a one in one million chance of getting anywhere. But with iBooks, unless you violate the clearly spelled-out terms of service, there’s no worry about getting past the gatekeeper. You can publish your book – your way and if you want – do it in one day. You don’t need a publishing house’s approval. You don’t have to wait on their editorial and marketing staffs to get off their butts and get your book in stores. You have a built-in market of tens of millions of people with access through iTunes (which runs on 95% of computers worldwide) to sell and/or share your books. You have a legitimate, respected, trusted and proven e-commerce solution from Apple to collect the money and the opportunity to get exposure through their site if your book is good enough.

The opportunities for photographers to share, educate, enrich, enlighten and entertain here are endless. Young people who have grown up in media-rich environments will no doubt think of new ways to use this technology to make even more fantastic productions. I’m glad it’s available to me and to you and I’ll share the results of my first attempt right here on Photofocus.
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Camera Lens Buying Guide – UPDATED January, 2012

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Master Photographer

UPDATED January 2012 – there have been several cool new lenses released since I first published this list and those changes are reflected herein. I’ve also added a few more of the older lenses I’ve had time to test and fall in love with. I’ve also added a section briefly explaining the difference between prime and zoom lenses:

I get lots of “what camera should I buy” questions here at Photofocus. I personally don’t enjoy that question since it’s sort of like asking me “What sort of car should I buy?”

I do have more sympathy for the next logical question: “What lens should I buy?” I am not talking about the “Is the Nikon 50 f/1.4 really better than the 50 f/1.8 lens?” questions, but the “What lens should I buy generally?” questions.

Neither question is easy to answer. This is an updated version of my first attempt (back in June, 2009) to cover this question. I have seven basic questions here that should help make the process of selecting a lens easier. For those who just want me to pick a lens for them, skip to the bottom where I have some generic suggestions.

If you’re trying to decide which lens to buy, here are some questions that you should answer (on your own) before you decide to go to the camera store.

1. What is your current skill level? Are you a raw beginner or advanced amateur? What are your goals? Do you want to turn pro or just shoot family photos? The advice I would give to someone buying their very first serious camera lens would sometimes be different than it would for someone who’s been at this five years. Pros need lenses with wide (fast apertures) etc.

2. What subjects do you like to photograph? The lens I’d suggest for photographing birds is very different than the one I’d suggest for a food photographer. Some subjects require long lenses (like sports and wildlife.) Other subjects like architecture require very wide lenses.

3. Will you primarily be shooting indoors or outside? If you’re shooting mostly indoors you’ll have to consider a faster lens than if you’ll just be shooting outdoors. Unfortunately, faster lenses cost more. But if you can’t or won’t use flash, super wide apertures are going to be important to you.

4. How much money do you want to spend? Lenses are like most things – you get what you pay for. Knowing how much you want to spend will often have a big influence on what I’d recommend. I personally think the lens is more important than the camera body – in some cases. It’s sort of like stereo equipment. Every genuine expert in that field I’ve spoken with says to spend the money on speakers. Here, I’d suggest spending the money on glass.

5. How long will you keep the lens? If you turn your gear over frequently, it might make sense to go with something less expensive than if you plan to use the lens over the entire length of your career. If you are the kind of person who hangs on to everything you buy, save your pennies and buy the best.

6. How strong are you? Weight (and size) are important factors in lens choice. I know many photographers who were very excited to get a Nikon 200-400 F/4 lens until they actually had to hold it. The thing is a beast. Are you prepared to carry whatever lens(es) you buy? It’s a shame to buy a lens and then not use it because it’s too much of a hassle to carry it.

7. Which is most important? Price, quality, durability? An old businessman taught me a very important lesson early in life. You can have it good, fast or cheap. Pick any two.

With this information in mind, you should be much better positioned to select the right lens for you.

Before I go on I want to address one common question about the difference between “prime” and “zoom” lenses.

For those who are new, a prime lens is merely a fixed focal length lens. It just means that unlike your 70-200 mm lens that allows you to use focal lengths between 70mm and 200mm, a prime lens will only shoot at a fixed length. Some common prime lens lengths are 24mm, 35mm 50mm, 85mm, 100 mm, 200mm, etc.

Here’s a rundown of the advantages prime lenses have over zooms from my point of view.

1. Prime lenses tend to be “faster” than zooms. What I mean by that is that they have a larger aperture (lower f-stop number) and allow more light into the camera.

2. Prime lenses tend to be sharper because they tend to have fewer optical compromises. Zooms require more lens elements and moving parts which could impact sharpness.

3. Prime lenses are typically smaller and lighter than their zoom-lens equals.

4. Prime lenses force you to think more about composition since you can’t just zoom your way out of a problem.

5. Prime lenses (at least the great ones) sometimes offer you more control with features like depth-of-field scales (used for hyper focal distance calculations) or aperture rings.

There are disadvantages to all these features. You have less flexibility, you have to buy and carry more lenses to achieve coverage of the same focal lengths, and good prime lenses can be expensive.

As for my own preferences, I like primes and I don’t shoot with many zoom lenses. Yes they are affordable, convenient and versatile. But there’s a trade off. They typically have more flaws than prime lenses. I am NOT saying you shouldn’t buy a zoom lens. In fact, I do own a few myself. Okay, I own three. I will even recommend a few below. But I believe (especially for those shooting video as well as stills on a DSLR) that a very fast prime lens is the best way to go for those who can afford it.

I also want to mention that I am not covering many third party lens manufacturers here. The reason is simple. I only own one third-party lens (Sigma 300-800mm f/5.6 EX DG HSM APO IF Ultra Telephoto Zoom Lens.) I haven’t had enough testing time with most of the third-party lenses to be able to tell you which ones are best. You can indeed often (but not always) save money with third-party lenses. My advice is to rent these before you buy to make sure they meet your needs. Another thing to note is that while third-party lenses often perform at levels consistent with the lenses produced by Canon and Nikon, they typically suffer more manufacturing defects. So your chances of getting the proverbial “bad copy” of a lens go up with third-party lenses. Lastly, if you do go with third-party lenses, try to stick with the higher-end third party lenses. Sigma in particular is making some very high-quality lenses at the higher end of the market.

For those who want to know which lenses I like, here are some quick (and safe) suggestions, in several price ranges.

NOTE: If YOUR favorite camera lens is not on this list, it doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s a good lens. These are just my personal choices.

I apologize in advance, but I won’t have time to advise folks individually regarding their lens choices. This list (as well as this post) are designed to help you select for yourself. When it doubt, rent. That way you can see for yourself if a lens performs as you expect it to.
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Normal Lens – 50mm

In my opinion, a fast 50mm lens is a must have in every serious photographer’s camera bag. For years, the fast 50 was the “kit” lens. This somehow made it less desirable and the camera companies started shipping cheap zooms with their bodies instead of the 50. I think that was a bad call. In most cases, I’d dump the kit lens in favor of a fast 50 and one auxiliary lens (at a minimum.) The good news is that fast 50mm lenses are affordable. Here are my suggestions.

BUDGET

Nikon 50mm f/1.8G AF-S NIKKOR Lens

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II

INTERMEDIATE

Nikon 50mm f/1.4D AF Nikkor Lens for Nikon Digital SLR Cameras

Canon EF 50mm f1.4 USM Lens

PRO

Nikkor AF-S 50mm f/1.4G Lens

Canon EF 50mm f/1.2 L USM Lens

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Wide Angle Lens

If you photograph landscapes, architecture, environmental portraits or anything else that requires a wide view, wide angle lenses are going to be important to you. While photographers disagree about how wide is wide enough, I’ve always found lenses in the 20mm to 28mm range to be a consistently good focal length for most wide shots. Yes, there are times when SUPER wides like the 14 or 16mm lenses will be more appropriate. These are typically expensive and overkill for MOST photographers. Feel free to go wider if you need to and can afford it. For the purpose of this piece, I’ll stick with 20mm to 28mm lenses as a wide angle choice.

BUDGET

No Budget Choice This Category

INTERMEDIATE

Nikon 20mm f/2.8D AF Nikkor Lens

Canon EF 24mm f/2.8 Wide Angle Lens

Canon EF 20mm f/2.8 USM Wide Angle Lens

PRO

Nikon 24mm f/1.4G ED AF-S RF SWM Prime Wide Angle Nikkor Lens

Canon EF 24mm f/1.4 L USM II Wide Angle Lens

Canon EF 14mm f/2.8L II USM Lens

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Zoom Lenses

I’ve already given my thoughts on zooms. In today’s economy, they will be the only logical choice for photographers on a budget. Thankfully, there are some very good and affordable zooms. Here are some of my favorites.

BUDGET

No Nikon choice in this category

Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L

INTERMEDIATE

Canon EF 70-200mm f/4 L IS USM Lens

Nikon 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR AF-S Nikkor Zoom Lens

PRO

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L II IS USM Lens

Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II AF-S Zoom Lens

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Specialty Lenses

Some photographers will need specialty lenses for things like macro, portrait, wildlife, sports or architectural work. There are also two micro four/thirds lenses on the list. Here are a few that I like.

INTERMEDIATE

Olympus M. Zuiko Digital ED 12mm f/2.0 Lens

Olympus M. Zuiko Digital ED 45mm f/1.8 Lens

Nikon 85mm f/1.8G AF-S NIKKOR Lens Nikon

85mm f/3.5G AF-S DX ED VR Micro Nikkor Lens

NOTE – the above 85 f/3.5 lens is designed ONLY for Nikon DX cameras. Full frame Nikon shooters should buy Nikon 105mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor Lens

Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM Lens

PRO

Canon EF 14mm f/2.8L II USM Ultra-Wide Angle Lens

Canon EF 800mm f/5.6L IS USM Lens

Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS II

Sigma 300-800mm f/5.6 EX DG Lens (Canon)

Remember, 98% of all lenses are better than 99% of all photographers. It’s not the gear that makes the photo, it’s the person who’s using it. Just because you own these recommended lenses, doesn’t mean you’ll get great shots. Practice your craft, build your vision and then these lenses might make a difference.

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Preparing for Desert Photography Travel

Posted on January 7, 2012 by Master Photographer

Preparing for Desert Photography Travel

One environment that I never tire of photographing is the deserts of the southwest United States. While the desert may look drab and gray during daylight hours during the golden and blue hour the desert transforms into a colorful and often surreal landscape. Mix in a little bad weather and you can capture some amazing landscape photos. Since the desert is an extreme environment I prepare for my shoots there with more scrutiny. Over the years my approach to desert photography preparations have bled into my general landscape photo shoot prep.

Here are 10 tips to prepare for your next adventure in the desert including 4 very important steps to ensure your safety:

Three Things Portrait Photographers Can Do To Establish A Connection With Their Subjects

Posted on December 26, 2011 by Master Photographer

There are several ways to establish a connection with your next portrait subject. Here are three.

1) Shooting straight on with your subject at or near eye-level establishes eye contact and a close relationship between the subject and the viewer. There is an intimacy to a straight on camera position that evokes an emotional response.

The straight on shot can work from any height, but it is most effective at eye level. If you want to establish an immediate connection between the viewer and the subject, shoot straight on.

2) Try to get an honest, genuine expression. Expression sells portraits. So get a real one. If you just tell someone to smile it rarely works as well as getting them to smile in a genuine manner. I am not above telling bad jokes to my subjects to get them to laugh or smile naturally. It makes the portrait more real and intimate in my opinion.

3) Take care of the technical stuff BEFORE the subject arrives for their portrait. Know what camera settings and lighting setups you want before they show up. The photographers who spend time fiddling with their cameras and gear don’t have as good a chance at establishing real rapport and connection with their subjects.

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Five Tips For The Proper Care & Feeding Of Memory Cards For Photographers

Posted on December 23, 2011 by Master Photographer

It’s been almost four years since I talked about this so I thought it might be worth a mention again. If you use a digital camera, you use compact flash or SD memory cards, or if you’re really unlucky and use certain models of the Sony camera, you use a proprietary and miserable memory stick.

Whatever memory card you use, there are some best practices that you might want to consider to keep your memory cards safe, and operational. Here are some suggestions. (Remember these are BEST PRACTICES. This doesn’t mean that you may not be able to get away with any or all of these things, it’s just that you’ll run a greater risk of problems if you ignore this advice.)

1) Always FORMAT your card after you have downloaded the images from it rather than erasing the images one-by-one or taking them en’ masse to the trash. This cleans up the file system and greatly reduces your chance of a crash.

2) Don’t share cards with friends, or put them into other people’s cameras or computers. This can cause a crash since the other camera or computer may attempt to write a system, desktop or file of unknown format to the card.

3) Stay away from the super-duper, neato ULTRA fast and large cards until they have been on the market for six months to a year. 90% of the problems come from these cards. They use gimmicks or acceleration routines that may or may not work in your camera, but that can cause instability. They are also really expensive so that’s plenty of reason to avoid them anyway.

4) The very large (and expensive) cards, are prone to far more File Allocation Table (FAT)-like errors. For ultimate safety, stick with cards that are at least one size smaller than the largest available until later, when they will be down in price and up in reliability.

5) Do not remove your card, or power down your camera while the card is writing. This can cause critical data loss. In fact, always turn your camera off before inserting or removing a memory card, just to be safe.

I’ve been very lucky. I’ve had an almost perfect track record with camera memory cards by following these guidelines. Hopefully they will help protect you too.

Seasonal Considerations for Wildlife Photographers

Posted on December 22, 2011 by Master Photographer

If you want to photograph wildlife (or any subject outdoors) pay attention to these seasonal considerations:

Winter – Snow can cause your camera’s meter to register an improper exposure by fooling the camera into thinking there is more light than there really is. A simple way to avoid this is to fill the frame with the animal or use your camera’s spot meter to make sure you are reading only the light that is striking the animal, not the light that is striking the surrounding areas. See the exposure section if you need a brush up on metering non-medium tones.

Cold weather can also affect your gear. Cold weather shortens battery life. It’s a good idea to keep your spare batteries in a pocket close to your body. Often, if a battery runs low, warming it up will help restore it. Some photographers have actually taped chemical hand warmers to the outside of their cameras over the battery compartment. For more tips on protecting your gear in the cold, see Secret #22 – Protecting your Gear.

Photographing in winter can be a joy, but you need to protect yourself and stay warm. We recommend layering appropriate clothing. That means synthetics or wool instead of cotton. Always have a hat available too.

It’s hard to change film or settings on your camera with frozen fingertips. Glove liners, fingerless gloves, and hand warmers are a few strategies for keeping your hands operating. One product that Rod really likes is the ThermaBand by Crazy Creek. The ThermaBand is a wrist strap made of polar fleece material. It has a pocket that holds a chemical hand-warmer against the wrist, which, according to Crazy Creek, “prevents the radial and ulnar arteries from constricting, increasing blood flow, keeping hands and fingers warmer.” With the ThermaBand, you can wear lightweight gloves or the fingerless flip top mitten gloves. When you do expose your fingers, they stay warm and workable. The hand warmer packets typically last up to seven hours, which, in the winter, means all day.

If your feet are uncomfortably cold or numb, you’re not going to be thinking about making your best photos. You’re going to be thinking that your feet are uncomfortably cold or numb. Combat this problem with chemical toe warmers and insulated boots.

To keep the rest of you going, have some high-energy food snacks in your pocket too.

If you use your head before going out in the cold, the rest of your body will remain comfortable, and you’ll be able to concentrate on your photography.

Spring – Spring brings rain to many areas of North America. Take appropriate steps to protect your gear. It’s also a time for wildflowers and fertile green backgrounds for your wildlife photos. There is more daylight in the spring than winter, so you may have more opportunities to shoot, but also note that the sun will be higher in the sky than in winter causing harsher light with greater contrast.

Summer – Summer is the hardest time to photograph wildlife. The sun is very high in the sky meaning that you have to restrict your shooting time to very early morning or very late afternoon. Crowds are always an issue if you go to parks, zoos, or refuges. You will also notice that the animals you photograph in summer don’t have the pretty coats of fur that you see the rest of the year.

Avoid photographing wildlife in the summer if you can help it. There are exceptions to this rule, such as bears in Alaska or moose in Maine. But for the most part, you’ll do better waiting for fall.

Fall – Fall is the best time to photograph at zoos, parks, and wildlife refuges. Summer crowds are gone. There are few school field trips to the zoo this time of year, and it’s cooler, so the animals are typically more active. Some zoos even offer discounted admission fees in the fall making it cheaper as well. The light tends to be lower in the sky this time of year, so the light will be softer or less harsh. Contrast ranges will be narrower making it easier to get a good picture every shot. Animals from cold climates will start to get their winter coats in the fall, making them much more photogenic. Depending on the location and weather, you might even be lucky enough to get backgrounds full of fall color.

Birds (and one deer) of Bosque 2012 – Diary Part 3

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Master Photographer

In my last installment of the diary, I said I was hoping for some weather at Bosque del Apache. Well I got it – perhaps I should have been more specific. I wasn’t hoping for deep, dark clouds and driving rain. I was shut out at the blast off. There was no light. But I did find some new spots that I’ll shoot from later. I made exactly one exposure and some video during the morning.

This is a good example of the patience it takes to be a nature or wildlife photographer. Unlike studio shooters who can control just about every aspect of their shoots, those photographing birds spend most of their time in a state of NO control.

You can’t control the weather, the light, the birds, the wind direction and strength, etc. You just need patience, luck and the basic knowledge required to put you in the best position to GET some luck.

This is why so many people give up nature or wildlife photography. They go out once or twice and if conditions are bad, they form an opinion that it will always be that hard and they move on. It takes incredible patience, spanning years sometimes, to do this work. When you get some luck and everything fits together, it’s very rewarding.

I did have some luck this week. Some deer were grazing on the reserve. Usually they are very timid and hard to photograph. This week they seemed more accessible. I managed a decent shot of one.

As always happens at Bosque, each day is packed with meeting more old friends who’ve also come here for years, and I even met some new ones. I was gratified at the number of people who came up and introduced themselves to me saying the read the site or listen to the podcast.

Because of the bad weather, I spent a few extra hours in Socorro. There are a few new restaurants, (If you go, try the new Mexican place directly across from Taco Bell. It’s really good) and a few old ones are victims of the recession. The old grocery stores are still here despite the newish Walmart. The Holiday Inn Express is one of the newest hotels in town, and it’s the most expensive and the nicest in my opinion. That said, it’s not exactly a great place. No Internet for the first two days of the trip and the hotel is badly in need of a renovation, but it’s still better than the choices we had in the mid 90s.

As I close this section of the diary I’ll say that now I’ve had enough time to form a reasonable opinion, there’s no doubt that my fears about Bosque turned out to be true. As bad as it’s been, I’ve been fortunate to get some good images. But it’s not like the old days. The refuge is simply seeing fewer birds than in past years. I talked with a wildlife biologist who assured me the bird populations are holding steady, it’s just that the birds aren’t stopping at the Bosque while on the flyway. I probably won’t be spending next Thanksgiving here.

To steal from Forest Gump – “Nature/Wildlife photography is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get!”

One more post coming from Bosque.
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Three Ways to Keyword Your Photos in Lightroom

Posted on November 16, 2011 by Master Photographer

NOTE: Guest Post by Laura Shoe — Follow Laura on Facebook

Keywords let you assign terms that you can use to recall them later via search in Lightroom. For an ocean photo of mine, examples might be Oregon, Seaside, coast, seascape, sunset. Keywording your photos will make finding them so much easier and faster, so don’t skip it!

Lightroom has at least five different ways to keyword. I’ll discuss the most commonly used three. Experiment with these to find the way or ways that work best for you.

* Type Keywords in the Keywording Panel

The Keywording panel is on the right in the Library module. Select one or more photos in the grid, then type in the large or small box, separating keywords with commas. Hit Enter/Return to finish. (Note, you must be in Grid view to apply keywords to a group of photos!)

* Use the Painter Tool to Spray on Keywords

Click on the spray can in the toolbar at the bottom of the grid. If you don’t see your toolbar (shown below), type T to reveal it. If you see your toolbar but not the spray can, click on the downward pointing triangle at the right edge of the toolbar and choose Painter.

Next to where you clicked on the spray can, choose Paint: Keywords, and in the box to the right of this, type in the keyword or keywords you want to apply. Hit Enter/Return.

Finally, click on each photo thumbnail you want to apply the keyword(s) to. To remove the keyword(s) you applied, hold down the Alt/Option key as you click again to erase.

Why the paint can symbol? It’s a fun reference to graffiti tagging!

* Use the Keyword List Panel

This panel is below the Keywording panel. It shows you all keywords you have ever applied to any photo in your catalog. To apply a keyword already in the list to one or more selected photos, click on the little box to the left of the keyword to put a checkmark in the box. To remove a keyword from selected photos, click on the checkmark to remove it.

To add a new keyword, click on the plus to the left of the Keyword List panel name, and enter it as the Keyword Tag. Generally you can keep the options set to the defaults. If you don’t have a photo in the grid selected, the keyword will just show up in your list for future use. If you do have a photo selected, the dialog will have a checkbox to add the keyword to the selected photos.

Of course the next step is learning how to search for your photos based on keywords. I will discuss this in my next post.

The other two ways to keyword are to use the Keyword Sets and Keyword Suggestions portions of the Keywording panel — these will be covered in a future post as well.

Laura Shoe is author of the Digital Daily Dose Lightroom (and Occasionally Photoshop) blog.

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