“Make your photos better”
Colin Mulvany, a staff photographer for the Spokane Spokesman-Review, has a great blog titled Mastering Multimedia. While it’s got lots of multimedia-related entries it also has still photo-related entries. While doing research for a presentation to student photographers for the Central Washington University Observer, I came across Colin’s list of “Ten Ways to Make Your Photos Better.” This is a great list that all photographers should review periodically.
Go to Colin’s blog and scroll down several entries to find the list.
–Gordon King
“There’s no free lunch”
I admit that I’ve got a soft spot for wrestling matches lit by a single overhead light (one of my most successful photos contest-wise was shot at such a match). But still, I’ve got a love-hate relationship with such matches and last night I was reminded of those conflicted feelings.
I love these matches because the single overhead light provides very dramatic lighting that turns an ordinary photo into a compelling image simply because the lighting is so cool.
Selah High School v. Toppenish High School wrestling
Wrestling-wise, there’s not much going on here. You can’t see faces and the body language is pretty boring. But the single overhead light has transformed this otherwise ho-hum photo into an pretty interesting photo that’s more graphic than journalistic.
Taking a wider view, the overhead light can give you this:
Selah High School v. Toppenish High School wrestling Jan. 19, 2010.
As a bonus, the single bright light yields a near-black background, free of any distracting elements.
But there’s truth to that old saying “there’s no free lunch.” While the light is dramatic, there’s not much of it. So, you got to shoot at a high ASA and slow shutter speed. You get a lot of blurred, unuseable photos.
Besides being blurred, the faces are often too dark to be useable, even though I am shooting in RAW format.
This is the photo we ended up running in today’s paper. Sort of a “thrill of victory and agony of defeat” all in one photo.
Selah's Ryan Depaz, left, celebrates after pinning Toppenish's David Chavez in the 215-pound match Jan. 19, 2010.
So while the single overhead light presents technical problems, the dramatic nature of the light more than makes up for those problems. Like I said, a love-hate relationship.
–Gordon King
Newspapers still matter
Everyone has a blog, it seems … or Twitter or Facebook, updated from their mobile phones, letting us know when they’re watching TV, brushing their teeth or in a long line at a fast food joint drive-thru. Anyone can post pretty much anything they want on the web. And they do: trillions of opinions, billions of video clips. A lot of people love to post photos on the web, too, and anyone with a camera phone can have their picture online.
The Mariner Moose greets students at Lince Elementary School in Selah during a stop from the Mariners Caravan Friday, Jan. 15, 2010. The Moose and Mariner players Doug Fister and Mike Carp presented their D.R.E.A.M. program to students that stresses the principles: Drug-free, Respect for yourself and others, Education through reading, Attitude and Motivation to achieve dreams. The caravan will make stops in 20 communities across the Pacific Northwest.
But not everyone can have their picture in the paper. If my recent visit to Lince Elementary School to see the Mariner Moose and a couple Mariner players is any indication, having your picture in the paper still means something. Like most events I attend, kids all over the room saw me with my cameras and as I got closer to them, started to mug, jump up and lean in to get my attention, begging me to photograph them once they know that I’m from the newspaper. At a recent Eisenhower basketball game, a high school student made extra efforts to convince me to put a photo of his friend — a starter on the team — in the paper. Adults, too, thank me for attending their events photographing them and recognizing their efforts, like the mission group from Memorial Bible Church in Gleed I recently shot.
Mission group members and other church members from Memorial Bible church in Gleed pray before loading luggage for a mission trip to the Dominican Republic and Haiti Thursday, January 14, 2010.
It’s nice to know that in an era when everyone is a commentator, reporter, photographer or videographer; when anyone can mass market ideas and call attention to themselves by using the web, the work I do for a printed newspaper still matters. In fact, with the continued inundation of online media and the inability of people first wade through it all and then to parse truths from opinions and real photos from faked ones, being in the newspaper might start to matter even more.
Images of tragedy
The images – still and video – coming from the tragic earthquake in Haiti are riveting, tragic and heartbreaking. Photos and videos are available on numerous news sites but the most compelling photos I’ve seen yet come from New York Times photographer Damon Winter. Look at Winter’s photos.
Winter’s photos – and the images of other photographers and videographers – tell a story of unimaginable tragedy and suffering. The videos I’ve seen provide a good overview of the tragedy, telling the story from a variety of angles. But it’s the still images which I find most compelling, especially Winter’s photos. I’m able to linger over each photograph (something not easily done with video) absorbing the intimacy of each image.
There are times when moving pictures (video) can tell a story better than still images but in this case, individual, still images tell the story in a way that video can never accomplish.
–Gordon King
