Light, photo requests and the real world

It’s simple - without light we couldn’t do our jobs. But there’s good light and bad light. Bad light happens starting in late morning and runs through early afternoon. Good light happens the rest of the day.

That’s why I think picture taking should be banned between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. Warm morning and afternoon and evening light can make a routine photo at least more interesting and in some cases, dramatic.

Children walking down a dirt road isn’t such an exciting photograph (the story was on the poor condition of the road). But shot at 7:30 a.m. the long shadows of the early morning light frame the youngsters and add character and shape to the potholes.

The same photo, shot at noon, would be dull as dishwater.
Another example of light transforming the routine into the dramatic is this photo of a horse:

The problem is, news and news photography doesn’t always happen between 3 p.m. and 9 a.m. so we often have to deal with harsh lighting (especially here in central Washington where the sun always seem to shine). We don’t like it but we deal with it.

–Gordon King

High-Tech

Just wanted to share this little high-tech photo tool. Ring lights are used a lot in high fashion shoots — they create soft but strongly directional light and create interesting round catch-lights in the subject’s eyes, rather than the bright pin-prick of a small flash or even the rectangle of a soft-box.

The only problem, they can can be a little spendy. I found directions to make one on-line (there are many approaches out there, just search for DIY ring light). And with about $5 invested (less than $3 for cheap plastic bowls, another two for silver duct tape), I found a way to make my own. Simple, cheap, lovely!

– Sara Gettys

1) cheap plastic bowls

2) silver tape to line the inside of a larger bowl, the outside of a smaller bowl, to reflect the light.

3) The set-up, about half an hour later. Scotch tape used to suspend the smaller bowl inside the bigger one, which has a hole cut out in the back to slip over the strobe. I also used some cardboard to make a little tunnel to slip over the head of the strobe so it would be easier to secure.

4) pretty light!

–Sara Gettys

The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat

One high school state basketball tournament here in Yakima ended last night (with an OT win by a local team) Another one begins this coming Wednesday and it doesn’t get any better than this. In the state tournaments teams play with a passion, intensity and desire you don’t find in the regular season.

All that translates into great action and more importantly, great emotion. This is the unvarnished emotion of youth and I love it. A couple of photos from this week’s class 1B tournament.

Two players from Tekoa-Oakesdale High School celebrate their win as the losers from Moses Lake Christian stand mutely on the sidelines of the court. Tekoa-Oakesdale advanced to the championship game where they lost a thriling game by one point in overtime.
On the flip side were the Sunnyside Christian High School girls:

GORDON KING/Yakima Herald-Republic Tearful Sunnyside Christian players (l-r) Julie Long, Andrea Schutt and Joleen Van Wingerden walk off the court after losing 57-53 to Garfield-Palouse in the semifinal game of the state class 1B basketball tournament Feb. 22, 2008 in the Yakima SunDome.

They tearfully walked off the court after losing a close one to Garfield-Palouse in the semifinals, their championship hopes dashed.

Shooting the post-game celebration/dejection isn’t easy - you need to put yourself in the right place at the right time to capture the storytelling emotions. And all that figuring and calculating can be for naught if the players don’t behave according to your plans.

Generally, I try to stand on the baseline at the end of the court where our local team is sitting. Players on the court, whether they are celebrating or crying, generally head toward their bench and teammates at the final whistle. After that initial flood of emotion players from both teams line up and greet the players from the opposing team. After they’ve moved through that line the players again head for their bench. They’re usually still very emotional which gives me another shot at capturing that emotion. And if you’re lucky you’ll get both the winners and losers into the same frame to give a complete picture of the game’s outcome.

I don’t always adhere to this strategy - I shot the two celebrating players on floor from a courtside table near the midcourt line as I was transmitting photos back to the newspaper from an earlier game. Still, the baseline strategy is usually a good place to start

–Gordon King

Here, Now - a photo column

As you’ve hopefully seen, one of my projects for this year is a photo column. For me, it’s a huge opportunity and challenge. This is my first column. After several years of admiring the work done by photojournalist columnists around the country, I decided to give it a try.

In developing my idea for the column, I was struck by two ideas. The first was that whenever I tell my physically distant friends and family that I live in Washington state, I always get the same reaction. “Wow, I bet it’s wet there.” Their only concept of Washington is of western Washington: lush, green, and urban. I wanted to begin to describe the Washington I live in, its quirks, its character, its landscape and people. To try to describe, in pictures, my community – sageland and hops, rather than orcas and Microsoft.

My second thought was that I should start this exploration soon. I’ve lived here now for just over two years. Things that used to surprise me are slowly becoming comfortable and mundane. Places that are new, surprising and interesting slowly become so much a part of my everyday experience that I hardly notice them any more. I want to continue to look at my home with the eyes of a newcomer, to be fascinated at the commonplace.

So over the next 12 months you’ll be seeing the Yakima Valley through my eyes. The column will appear in the “Life in the Northwest” section monthly in print, and will also soon have it’s own home on the photo department’s website, which I hope to update more often.

Some entries will be a single photo, others will have video or slideshows. Each entry will explore the link between place, THIS place, and the people who live here. In the next 11 months, I want to paint a portrait of the Yakima Valley.

In picking situations to photograph, I am sketching out the shape of her. In editing my photos and videos I am choosing the nuance of line, here ragged as the ice along the river’s edge, here soft as cherry blossoms falling to the ground. And in the faces and stories of the individuals I will meet, I hope to discover the colors of life here: the earthy brown of everyday struggles, the brilliant glitter of a child’s sudden laugh.

It will be my portrait, painted with my experience.

I also welcome any suggestions for people and stories to photograph as part of this column. Please leave a comment below or email me with contact information at sgettys@yakimaherald.com.

–Sara Gettys

Footprints in the snow - a fading memory

Long ago I saw photo by photographer William Davis that has stuck with me ever since. It’s in the book, “If Mountains Die: A New Mexico Memoir,” by John Nichols and Davis. It’s a simple photograph of a magpie’s imprint in the snow.

For me, it’s something that’s difficult to wrap words around. With the imprint, the magpie gives itself away, marks its existence for the moment; but that bird’s legacy is only a fading memory at its discovery. In a matter of days, hours, minutes, that frozen moment will be gone.

But the photograph captures it, keeps the moment for us to see, and in doing so allows us to see more than that moment: we can see the time before it was there, the moment it happened and the time after it was gone. So I always look for footprints in the snow. I do my best to appreciate every one. These were in my back yard.

–Andy Sawyer

‘Tis the season of lights

Merry Christmoose.

.

–Andy Sawyer

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