And while the magazines are still outstanding, the National Geographic website may be even better because of all the information it offers readers. I highly recommend the photo section. Be sure to read Jim Richardson’s postings, “Notes and Tips from the Field.”

One of my favorite lines from his writings comes this nugget: “If you want to be a better photographer, stand in front of better stuff.”

–Gordon King

i

A Canon 1D Mark IV (with logos covered by gaffer's tape, of course)

First, the functions of this camera are mind-boggling. You can configure the camera to operate in just about any way that suits your shooting style.
But all these custom functions can be a  bit bewildering as we found the instruction manual to be less than clearly written for some of the functions (changing the back-button focus and disabling the focusing on the main shutter release was particularly challenging).
I’d recommend going to Canon’s video tutorials for clear, concise explanations of all the camera’s functions and options. These tutorials do what the instruction manual doesn’t.

The autofocus is blazing fast. I got more in-focus frames of an indoor football game than I would have gotten with my Canon 1D Mark II.

Yakima Valley's Rokiem Rowland intercepts a pass late in the first quarter as Yakima Valley leads Ogden 13-0.

Also, the low-light capabilities of the camera are amazing (especially for a person whose first digital camera was a Kodak/Canon DCS520). This football photo was shot at ASA 6400.

The autofocus was the subject of some discussions just after the Mark IV hit the market with some commenters bemoaning that the autofocus on the Mark IV was no better than the autofocus on the Mark III (which had numerous problems).

The autofocus has worked well for me and I suspect some of those folks experiencing  focus problems might not have taken the time to properly configure the autofocus. There are numerous autofocus options and each user should take the time to work through them all to ensure the best option is chosen.

Though some of the control buttons are different the layout is essentially the same as the Mark II so once you get the camera set up it’s easy to use if you’ve been shooting with the Mark II or an even earlier model such as the ID.

I’ve not had the chance to shoot any video with the camera but staff photographer Sara Gettys has shot some video and offers this perspective on the combination video and still camera.

–Gordon King

“One of the things I love about our new video capabilities is, simply, the ability to carry less gear. Being able to be flexible and responsive to a situation is one of the things I like about being a still photographer. With my two cameras and a hip bag, I can hike, climb, run, ride, and move around easily in many situations. When I had to carry around another entire set of gear to do video with, I felt it limited me to what I could do. It’s hard to be response or move through a crowd or hike up a hill while carrying two camera bodies, a hip pack, a large tripod, and a video camera bag that’s measures 3 feet by 1 foot by 2 feet. It meant that changing position, to shoot a still or video clip, meant moving a lot of equipment and often not being able to get myself and all my gear into the ideal shooting situation. No hiking up long trails, no climbing on a ladder for a different angle. Now I can move like I do as a still shooter and that freedom has helped me make videos of situations that would have been physically difficult, if not impossible with our other equipment. I imagine the photographers who switched from speed graphics to 35mm cameras!”

–Sara Gettys

Okay, a lot less technologically advanced. The Holga is a plastic toy camera with minimal controls. The shutter is a simple wire spring and the film moves from one reel to the next and can’t be rewound without using a dark bag. Exposure and focus are mainly left up to guesswork. I’ve used it for one other story at the YHR, shooting dreamy images of the state fair in 2007, and explain what it brought to that process here.

For this shoot, I decided to shoot 35 mm film. Both because I’d never tried it before and because it’s easier to process. I could just take it to a photo lab. Because the Holga is designed to shoot 120mm film, I had to modify the film holders a bit, using the high-tech method of stuffing packing peanuts around the reel of film and jiggling it to make sure it will stay in place. I adjusted the 120 film reel with some rubber bands.

I did a little bit of research and found out that 1.5 rotations of the film winding knob will give plenty of space between exposures, and (after ruining a test roll), covered the red window on the back (used to wind 120 film) with a couple pieces of cardboard and lots of black tape. Then I just packed a dark bag and several rolls of film and set off to shoot.

One of the limitations of shooting with this was the limitations of exposure. 400 ISO film is great for daylight, but didn’t give me much indoors. I found myself wishing I had toted along my tripod to shoot the face of the reactor, which I could have “built up” an exposure by exposing the film over and over and over without winding the film or moving the camera. I also could have used a flash on some of the smaller spaces I shot inside and that would have helped the contrast of the image.

Lastly, I converted the digital files from the flatbed scan to black and white. I did this for two reasons — it seemed to fit the historic flavor I was trying to convey with the story and also the color bars on the bottom of the film, above and below the sprocket holes were too visually distracting. Converted to black and white, I felt they contributed to the image, but in color, they just dominated the image.

This was a fun way to tackle this story and a simple way to have some photographic fun. If you’re interested in giving it a try here are the resources I used:

I bought my Holga at Freestyle Photographic Supplies, the simplest version of the camera cost about $28.

You can buy film and get it developed at many local shops if you shoot regular color (not slide, not b&w) film.

I had the negatives scanned at ProPhoto supply. I just mailed them in a stiff cardboard mailer and paid over the phone. They scanned them and sent them back in about a week. Their price list is on their website.

There are also tons of Holga galleries out there and work on Flicker as well, so you can always find inspiration!

It’s a problem we often have when shooting high school sports. Cross country runners don’t wear numbers during meets (except in the bigger meets) Ditto for high school track athletes. This time of year our biggest problem is high school soccer. Many of the teams we cover don’t have numbers on the fronts of their jerseys.

I shot this photo at a recent soccer match.

West Valley High School's Forrrest Chapin, left and Sunnyside High School's Alfredo Gomez battle for the ball in the second half of their game May 15, 2010. West Valley won 2-0.

No numbers. How to identify the players?

One solution is to shoot the backs of the players, where there are numbers.

West Valley High School beats Sunnyside High School 2-0 in the regional soccer championship May 15, 2010.

Sometimes, though, the players don’t turn around soon enough for us to photograph the backs of their jerseys.

Then, we must look for other identifying marks on players. In the first photo above, the player in red has white athletic on his left hand. We can look for that tape in another frame, hopefully a frame in which we can see the jersey number of the player.

Shoes are also good way of identifying individuals since most players wear different shoes with different markings.

If all else fails, we can take a copy of the photo to a coach or other player later in the day (or e-mail it to them) to get help identifying players. But the photo has to be really, really good to merit this amount of effort and often there’s not time to do this.

Trying to sort out players’ identities can be time consuming and frustrating (especially with a looming deadline) but it’s part of the job. We sometimes joke about each of us on the photo staff chipping in money to buy numbers for the fronts of jerseys.

But until that that happens we will continue to photograph back of jerseys and look for tape and different shoes.

–Gordon King

We’ve got a couple of different ways of dealing with the year in/year out monotony of covering the same events. If possible, we try to have a different person photograph this year’s event than photographed last year’s event. If there’s an story which accompanies the photos, perhaps we can take a different tack on the story which would, in turn, would most likely provide different photos.

But sometimes neither approach works. When that happens I think the best approach to shooting the same event in consecutive years is to first have a good cup of coffee and then take on a good attitude about the assignment (“it’s not a problem. It’s an opportunity disguised as a problem.” Or some such management-speak)

Also, it helps to know what photos were published from previous coverage.

Given the opportunity/challenge/opportunity to shoot an education awards ceremony I  had a grande, non-fat, extra-hot Starbuck’s latte to put me in the proper frame of mind. I still remembered the photos I shot of the ceremony last year so I knew what to avoid shooting. And with Starbuck’s help I was able to take up the challenge with a good attitude.

The photo from this year’s awards ceremony:

Dave Walter, center, was all smiles after receiving a Crystal Apple Award from the Yakima School District Tuesday, April 27, 2010. Walter, one of five Crystal Apple recipients this year, is the director of Instrumental Music at Eisenhower High School. At left is Steve Wright, assistant principal at Eisenhower and right, Chris Walter, Dave's wife. The awards are given annually to outstanding educators in the district.

Last year’s photo:

"Wow! Ohmigosh!" exclaimed teacher Christina Carlson after learning from Dave Dion, right, she was receiving a Crystal Apple Award for outstanding teaching in the Yakima School District. Carlson was surprised with the award at a Tuesday, April 28, 2009 meeting. She is a fifth grade teacher at the Discovery Lab School. Dion is a co-chairman of the award committee.

–Gordon King

The Yakima Sunrise Rotary Club

I enjoy speaking to civic groups because it’s always nice to de-mystify the news business for the layperson. Equally important, it’s a chance for me to hear the ideas and opinions of “regular” folks on our photography, picture selection and photo content. It’s a good reminder how we, as professional photojournalists, sometimes lose touch with the visual needs and wants of our readers (i.e. our “customers”).

I had one particularly interesting exchange with a gentlemen representing a local youth golf instruction program. He disliked a photo I shot during one of the program’s instructional sessions.

Kira Alexander, 11, reclines on a golf bag as she waits her turn to hit golf balls at The First Tee golf program at Fisher Park in Yakima, Wash. July 6, 2009. The program teaches youngsters core values and life skills along with golf skills, says Del Rankin, the executive director of the Yakima chapter of The First Tee Program. This is the second year of the program in Yakima and this year there are 248 youngsters enrolled in the 10-week-long program, double the number of youngsters in last year's program. Two hundred are attending the weekly sessions at Yakima-area parks and golf courses with 48 attending sessions in Granger. This is the first year Alexander has played golf.

A little background on this photo. I had about an hour one morning to find a standalone photo for the front page of the next day’s local section. It was a lazy, warm sort of summer day here in Yakima and I was hoping to capture an image which reflected this (though, truth be told, I was ready to take just about any photo as my available time began to dwindle).

Coming upon a group of youngsters and several supervising adults giving golf instruction I got the photo opportunity I had been looking for and I shot the photo of the girl reclining in the sunshine. I thought it captured the weather and mood of the day.

However, the Rotarian who’s one of the program’s principals, thought the photo did the program a disservice and did not accurately portray the mentorship nature of the program.

I explained to him my motivation and visual needs that morning and that we had done a photo and story on his program the previous year.

Students in The First Tee program, left, from center, Joel Ford, 13, Andrew Devine-Wolff, 11, Taylor Newquist, 11, and Dayinera Weber James, 11, listen to instructor Del Rankin, far left, before hitting a basket of balls at Suntides Golf Course on Thursday, July 17, 2008.

Still, the Rotarian wasn’t satisfied with my explanations.

I respect his viewpoint though I don’t agree with it.

But with this conversation I was reminded how some readers and viewers don’t always agree with the photos we choose and don’t understand why we do what we do. And I’m not saying our visual decisions should be guided solely by what one reader says. However, we should at least  respect our readers’ and viewers’ opinions and remember for whom we’re working.

–Gordon King

Stock photography may satisfy the bean counters and photo managers with ever-tighter budgets but a cheap photo may ultimately cost the publication much more than the price of the photo.

“The quality of licensed imagery is virtually indistinguishable now from the quality of images they might commission,” said Jonathan Klein, the chief executive of Getty Images, a stock photo agency.

Sure, a stock image may be good (enough) but is it truthful? How will the reader or viewer know if a photo in a news publication was an image set up and orchestrated by the photographer or a real, unrehearsed photo captured at the right time by the photographer that reflects the situation?

Or does it even matter to the reader whether the photo is real or fake?

I believe it does matter. It matters a lot. I believe in the authenticity of news images. Photos should capture reality as much as possible to accurately inform the reader or viewer. I’m talking about photojournalism here, pictures which, or at least appear to, show a real event or person.

And while there’s no guarantee that commissioned photography is indeed accurate and truthful, I believe a photo editor working directly with the photojournalist is much more likely ferret out any false images.

So a stock photo may be cheap but it may end up costing a publication much more – that publication’s credibility. To me credibility is worth much more than any savings gained by purchasing a cheap stock image.

–Gordon King

(L-R) Valley Workshop participant Rianna Ramirez, mentor Shannon Dininny and student photographer Morgan Snyder work together at an indoor rummage sale at Eisenhower High School. Dininny is the central Washington reporter for Associated Press.

Read the story and see Morgan’s photos.

The stories and photographs are published later in the Herald-Republic.

Student photographer Mayra Mora takes a portrait of a local band that will soon play at a concert to benefit victims of the Haiti earthquake.

It’s a lot of fun for the mentors and a lot of pressure on the students, for most of whom the word “deadline” is not in their vocabulary.

Workshops like this are one way we, as journalists, can give something back to the community. It’s important we show others how journalism is an interesting career  and how there there is a future for journalism, despite the (hopefully inaccurate) predictions of the death of newspapers.

Mentor Pat Muir works with student reporter Kathleen Dolan, left, and photographer Mayra Mora, second from right, to craft a cutline for Mora's photograph that accompanied Dolan's story on a local

Go here to read Kathleen’s story and see Mayra’s photo.

And even if newspapers do go away, there will always be a need for quality journalism and photography. Our goal at the Valley Workshop is to give the students an appreciation for, and taste of, the work required for good journalism and photojournalism. And, hopefully, to make them want to pursue journalism, regardless of how it may be published.

And for those interested in cameras, these photos were shot with a new Canon G11, set on the program mode at ASA 800, with the photos being shot in RAW format. I purchased the camera a couple of months ago and this is the first real indoor test of the camera.

–Gordon King

Bronson Faul

The candidate. Seems like a very nice fellow.

But he could use a few tips on how to hold a press conference. I don’t want to pick on him, specifically, because lots of other political candidates have made the same mistakes.

So, just a couple of tips for those planning a press conference.

Generally speaking, the better the physical  arrangement of the press conference the better the photographs. And while we may not use anything other than a head shot for the initial announcement there’s no telling when we might need some sort of file photo of the press conference for later use.

Backgrounds that relate to the subject at hand are good. A judicial candidate might announce on the steps of the courthouse. A press conference on the water quality of a river should be held by that river.

Mr. Faul’s press conference was a good example of where not to hold a press conference. It was held in one corner of our local indoor arena, at the same time a home and garden show was being set up.

Attorney Bronson Faul declares his candidacy for district court judge in a press conference March 19, 2010. He speaks with Herald-Republic reporter Phil Ferolito, the only member of the media to attend.

The backgrounds were lousy and show vendors kept walking through the scene.

Mr. Faul says he held the conference there because he has a booth at the show and because his wife works for the trade group sponsoring the show and he wanted to give the show a little press exposure. Admirable thoughts, perhaps, but not the best decision for a visually pleasing press conference.

For a campaign announcement, having family members present is nice. Again, it tells something about the candidate and his personal life and gives us photographers more visual possibilities.

Carly Faul holds her son and watches as her husband Bronson Faul declares his candidacy for district court judge position no. 4 March 19, 2010 in Yakima, Wash.

There was a cacophony of background noise at Mr. Faul’s presser as booths and displays were being set up for the home and garden show.

It’s best if press conferences are held in relatively quiet places so good audio can be gathered. Audio with lots of background noise distracts from the message of the press conference. You can minimize the intrusion of background noise by the use of a wireless microphone  but not every multimedia journalist can afford such gear.

There’s lot of other dos and don’ts for visually successful press conferences. Professional PR people can usually (but not always) stage a visually pleasing press conference but those without such professionals are on their own.

–Gordon King

So, sometimes it’s helpful to take a step back and have a good laugh at something photo-related.

Go here for a really good laugh and then go out and make some good photos.

–Gordon King