Yesterday, I was in a the woods near Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, shooting this:

An abandoned schoolbus, once used as a hunting lodge for locals now long forgotten.

No light except available. You can see what lens I used, yes? Wide angle – 16mm (On a full frame camera).

As for settings, how did I arrive at the right settings?

1. I set the camera to Manual mode.
2. I wanted f/4, so I set that first.
3. Then I wanted a sufficiently fast shutter, say 1/40th sec or faster – at least 1/15th second when using a 16mm angle, to avoid camera shake. So I set that.
4. So that led to the ISO setting – I set the ISO so my meter indicated “-1 stop” when I aimed the camera, zoomed out, at an “average” scene (why -1? Because it is dark. Why not -2? BEcause I am ever so slightly “exposing to the right”, and I do not want to lose the highlights.

So that gives you:

And sometimes, a little adjustment in post: pulling back the highlights in the RAW image, and perhaps increasing the shadows’ brightness, to avoid the inside being all back or the outside all blown out:

Shooting contrasty scenes like this is not easy. So a trick you can use: go to Program Mode, with auto ISO, and see what settings this mode uses, then disable Auto ISO and go back to Manual, and emulate those previous settings; then fine-tune and adjust to taste.

Today I photographed a birthday party, in a Toronto park, outdoors under cover. “Simple”, you might think; “everyone can do this, with a point-and-shoot”  – but not so. Simple results need real skills. That’s why you hire a pro. Let me explain.

Take a picture like this, for instance:

That simple-looking snap needs considerable technical skills:

• Choosing the right lens! 24mm on a full frame gives you this “wrap-around” 3D-type feeling. You need to know what lenses give you what results. I used a 24-70 zoom lens on a full frame camera (the Canon 1Dx) for best results, but I thought carefully about what lens focal length to use for any shot.
• Then, to take care of the background exposure. The camera was on manual (M), and I chose f/4, at 1/40th second, using 640 ISO. That gave me a good, slightly dark background. f/4 gave me enough depth of field with that lens width. 1/40th froze enough motion with that angle.  (TIP: a good starting point for indoors is the Willems 400-40-4 rule: 400 ISO, 1/40th sec, f/4. Then adjust as needed).
• Of course I was changing parameters all the time, since the sun went from totally gone (thunderstorms) to full bright – many stops difference between shots. Be ready for this!
• I bounced the flash and knew exactly where to bounce it – an essential part of bouncing. I have eyes in the back of my head while bouncing, and you should develop the same. Where is the virtual umbrella?
• I also knew how to set aperture and ISO to get enough available flash power!

It needs creative skills also:

• I needed to see the bubbles and positioned myself accordingly. I also waited for the right arrangement of bubbles. I ensured my bounce angle lit enough of the bubbles.
• I needed to get the right angle: I got down to child level.
• The Rule of Thirds gave me a pleasing composition.
• I did the necessary to get the child to look at me – not at all a given (and please parents, do not say “SMILE”).

Or take a shot like this:

All personality, with the same compositional and technical rules as before. In a shot like this, it is all about the moment, and the technical details should be a given. You snooze, you lose.

Then consider this:

Here, it’s the same tech skills and compositional skills, but we add storytelling as the necessary skill. Great photographers are great storytellers.

How about this?

Well, all the above is needed, but here there’s personality and communication mixed in. What’s the little girl thinking? Why the serious expression? Raising questions is an important part of artistic expression. And let’s face it, photography is an artistic endeavour.

The above shot is about the performance, a simple shot of record – but everything has to be perfect for it to work. You cannot miss!

Here it’s about using studio lights powered by a lead-acid battery pack to “nuke the sun” – you have read here about this technique many times (and if not, get the flash book and learn flash!). It’s also about that great proud smile. Really, isn’t that photo just “life in a nutshell”?

Another example of the same: how you can make direct sunlight go away and by using flash, override whatever bad light happens to be available, so that horrible direct sunshine can instead end up looking like this:

I hope these sames from a simple two-hour shoot show you that there is mileage in learning pro skills, or hiring a pro. It’s not at all “tech stuff for the sake of tech stuff”, or “pretentious art talk”. There really is an enormous benefit to these skills. Having great images of your event is time travel, is life committed to eternity. Cliché? I don’t think so – I prefer to think “truth”. I have only one image of myself as a child, and I wish I had many, and that they were all professional images.

OK… one more.

The family was incredibly hospitable and kind – as I find most people are! – and grandma made the fried snacks and the hummus, both pictured.  Please photograph the food, especially when it is made by the people you are working for – love and soul went into it, and the photos will make it last forever.

iPhone snaps just won’t do it. Please make a record of your life events. Hire a pro, or if you are one of my student readers, learn the pro skills. It costs money – yes, but not doing it wastes life!

And here is my graduate son Jason, B.Eng in Montréal a few hours ago:

And how did I shoot this? With a direct, head-on flash, yes, and High-Speed flash enabled: 1/250th second, /f7.1, 400 ISO.

Yes, outside it’s OK to shoot head on if you have to. Not creative, but competent. And these settings were designed to give me DOF and a slightly darker background, so the subject stands out.

Here’s an inside-the-tent shot:

I shot at f/2.8 to f/3.2: in fact, the tent was the right brightness to use another mnemonic: 32/32/32, or “3200 ISO, 1/320th sec, f/3.2”.  Namely, 1/320th to freeze camera motion while I am using the long 70-200mm lens; f/3.2 to give me a little DOF for accuracy; ands 3200 to enable the two above. All photography involves a little thinking!

….is where I am about to teach the Porcupine Camera Club more flash technique today.

And today, I went 1.2 km underground, at a Timmins goldmine, to make pictures like this:

What did I learn, other than “things get dirty”, and “I like mines and miners”?

It’s tough light. And the boots are heavy and overalls cumbersome, but I knew that too.

• I learned  that my main obstacle was the hard hat, and the safety glasses. The hard hat stopped me from being able to move the camera up to my face. And the glasses made it impossible for me to easily move my reading glasses into and out of place. I had to improvise.
• I also learned that my helmet light was very useful both in lighting up subjects to focus, and in lighting them up for the photo.
• I refrained from using my Pocketwizards where there were explosives being installed; radiating under 5W they were safe, I was told, but I thought I had better not take risks! So I used remote TTL for that part.
• The first 600 metres were humid with fog; below that, the fog lifted.
• I rarely had to go above 1600 ISO.

Great pictures resulted from my day UG (underground)… but I will fill you in on more technique the next few days.  After I sleep!