Piecing it together

Sunday, I shot a Bat Mitzvah party. Great fun, and wonderful people: this is why I love photography. Happy people celebrating a life event, and I get to shoot it: a privilege, and I get to do it for a living. What’s not to like?

I shot both formal portraits (using a backdrop and two strobes with umbrellas plus two speedlites for hair light and background light) and photojournalistic party shots.

For the latter, I have a few tips.

  • Use a wide or somewhat wide lens. fast if possible. (I used a 16-35 f/2.8 zoom on a 1D MkIV, so that means I get a 22-46mm range).
  • “If it smiles, shoot it”!
  • Compose well. Use off-centre composition. Tilt if necessary or whenever you like (though not, please, in every picture). Do the “close-far” thing (search for it here if you do not know what this means).
  • Camera on manual indoors and A/Av outdoors, and bounce your flash.
  • Shoot detail, too.
  • Often what you do not see tells the story.

The last points are worth belabouring. Like in a good Haiku, not telling the whole story is what makes it interesting. Implying, rather than saying.

Here, for instance, we do not see the girl, and her dad and family are blurred too:

Dad holds a speech for his Bat Mitzvah daughter. Photograph by Michael Willems

Dad holds a speech for his Bat Mitzvah daughter.

But you see the smiles, and you can imagine what is going on. The picture tells a story.

And below, who wrote this? Little sister? The picture asks as many questions as it answers:

Little sister wrote on Bat Mitzvah girl's blackboard, photographed by Michael Willems

Little sister wrote on Bat Mitzvah girl's blackboard

And in the next image, one of my favourite party shots, the drink says fun: the blurred face emphasizes the fun and again, tells a story without telling too much:

Cheers! Girl raises juice glass, photographed by Michael Willems

Cheers! Girl raises juice glass

Another detail shot to not miss: the food.

Fruit, photographed by Michael Willems

Fruit

Here, during speeches, dad looks at his amused Bat Mitzvah daughter. We do not see who is speaking, even that anyone is speaking, but we can piece it together. Piecing it together is what makes a picture interesting to a viewer.

Speech at Bat Mitzvah, photographed by Michael Willems

Speech at Bat Mitzvah

Of course even in the photojournalistic phase you do some set up shots, like the very last shot I took at the event: mum and daughter.

Bat Mitzvah and mom, photographed by Michael Willems

Bat Mitzvah and mom

—-

(Incidentally, if you want to learn theory and practice of creative use of light, there are still spots available on the advanced lighting course Joseph Marranca and I are putting on on June 26. Click here for the link. )

Snapshot rules

Even when you take a simple snapshot, as a photographer you should think about how to do it. Almost subconsciously, I apply the same rules and the same thinking to a snapshot that I do to a photo I am paid for.

So I thought it might be worthwhile to discuss some of that thinking. In that context, here is a snapshot I took the other day of a friend:

Michael's friend Ninon, shot with a wide angle lens

Michael's friend Ninon, shot with a wide angle lens

In the second or two before I take that snap, what is some of my thinking, and what are some of the decisions I make?

  • Subject: What is this a photo of? (it is a happy snap, so “camera-aware” and a smile are just great). Check.
  • Light: Where is the light coming from? In this case it is from her front, indirect reflected light, i.e. nice flattering light. Check.
  • Lens choice: I want to use a wide angle lens here because this is a situational portrait, a city woman in her city. Wide angle lenses put a subject in context. I want a wide angle lens also because it creates those nice diagonals that converge on the subject, can you see them? Finally, I also want wide angle to show depth in the photo (a technique knows as “close-far”).
  • Depth of field: I want to draw attention to my subject by blurring the background, so I use Aperture mode (A/Av) with an aperture of f/2.8. Wide angle lenses are sharp all over, but by using a fast one (f/2.8) and by getting close I can still blur the background dramatically.
  • Composition: I am using the rule of thirds. “Uncle Fred” puts the subject in all his images smack bang in the middle: I use off-centre composition. In this case the centre of attention (her face) is one third from the right, one third from the top. And she is looking into the picture, not out of it.
  • Moment: you need to capture the right moment. I shot four times and by photo number four, her smile was best. Shoot a lot, even in a portrait. so you capture just the right moment. I also thought the right moment included the “suits” in the background. After all, King and Wellington, downtown Toronto, means suits out for (if not out to) lunch. So I was delighted to see them approach and took the four shots just as they passed behind her.

That is, in a nutshell, what I thought in the seconds leading up to this picture.

That is my thinking. Yours may have been different, and that is of course perfectly OK. There is not one good picture: there are 100 billion. The essence here is not what my conclusions were, but the fact that I was thinking at all, instead of just blindly snapping.

Light, moment and composition/subject, that is what makes up a picture. So think of those every time you take one, and your pictures will get better.

Five-and-a-half feet.

Yes, five and a half feet. Above the ground. That is the distance from which Uncle Fred takes every single picture.

Like this:

A street in Oakville shot from 5.5 feet above ground level by Michael Willems

A street shot from 5.5 feet above ground level

Now instead, why not get close to the ground? Like this. And look at the difference that makes:

A street in Oakville shot from 12" above ground level by Michael Willems

A street, shot from 12" above ground level

Much more intimate and dramatic.

…or perhaps even tilt it, using a mis-named “Dutch Angle”?

A street in Oakville shot from 6" above ground level by Michael Willems

A street shot from 6" above ground level

Now it’s like we are crawling on the ground.

Try to get interesting angles. Avoid the ubiquitous Uncle Fred straight-and-level 5.5′ AGL position when you can do better.

Shooting airplanes

And I mean with a camera, of course. That is what I did yesterday, with my student and friend Ray, at Pearson International Airport’s runway 24R. Where the aircraft are seemingly about to land on your car:

Airplane about to land

Airplane about to land at YYZ

Yes, that is my car, and yes, I do trust aircraft and pilots. And yes, I have about 250 hours in Cessnas, all over the planet, so I understand how it’s done.

So let’s talk about taking airplane pictures. Do I have any tips? Of course I do.

First about preparation.

  1. Check the runways and check where you can shoot. Even without a scanner, if the wind is from the west, runway 27 might be in use; if it from the north, runway 36 is more likely. (the numbers times ten are the compass direction). Take sun into account as well – you do not want to shoot into the sun if you do not have to.
  2. If you can, bring a scanner, and set it to tower frequencies (like 118.70 MHz AM). That way you will know who is about to land. Listen for “Heavy” – those are the big aircraft.
  3. Park where it is allowed. Getting arrested or told to move helps no-one. Look for other enthusiasts.

About the lens.

  • If you use a lens with image stabilisation, you can use it if you are not moving the lens. If you are moving the lens, because the aircraft is close, turn it off (or use “mode 2/active VR” on expensive lenses).
  • It may be tempting to think “I need a long lens”. And maybe you do. You get nice pictures like this:
Turboprop Landing

Turboprop Landing

And like this:

Small jet landing

Small jet landing

But if in fact you are close to a runway, contrary to what you first think,  you probably will want a wide angle lens.

Wide is good:

  • it is forgiving with focus
  • it is forgiving with motion blur
  • it is forgiving with depth of field. All good.

And you may need a wide lens just to get it all in. You can get pictures like this, with dramatic perspective:

Air Canada Jazz landing over a phone box

Air Canada Jazz landing at YYZ

Now exposure and other camera settings.

  • Set the camera to continuous drive (you press, it keeps clicking away)
  • Set the camera to continuous focus (“AI Servo” or “AF-C”)
  • Preferably, use manual exposure mode.  I used manual, 1/500th second, f/8, and 200 ISO for most of today’s pictures. I measured this off the bottom off the first aircraft.
  • Use 1/800th second if you can to freeze motion. But when shooting turboprops, 1/400th or perhaps 1/320th is good to show some blur in the props.

The better your exposure in camera, the less work you have to do afterward.

Finally, composition.

Big aircraft are good.

Big aircraft

A large aircraft landing

Even better, add some foreground object, so show perspective and scale. Like here:

BA aircraft landing at YYZ over a phone box

BA aircraft landing at YYZ

Or here:

Air Canada landing at YYZ

Air Canada landing at YYZ

Or here:

Aircraft about to land, over Bell Phone Box

Aircraft about to land

That is my advice. And above all, keep in mind that this is supposed to be fun. Don’t sweat it is not all images are sharp. There’s another plane coming soon.

And if (like me) you go home with 600 pictures, you will have to cull 90% of them, and that hurts. But it’s got to be done!

Wide angles, and why?

I like wide angle lenses, as this shot, taken the other night at an event I was shooting, shows:

A wide angle shot

A wide angle shot

I used a bounced flash and set the camera to manual mode and opened up the aperture, slowed down the shutter, and increased ISO enough to allow the available light to d some work as well.

And wide angle means:

  1. I can focus easily on “everything”
  2. I can use a slow shutter speed without blur
  3. I can get close to someone or something, zoom out, and thus introduce depth.

And that is what I did there.

About wide angles:

I often get asked “what wide angle lens should I get?”. Of course that is a difficult question to answer: there is no “should” about it. But in general, unless of course you are shooting an African lion safari, wide angle lenses are the most flexible.

Here’s my son Jason driving the car the other day:

Why do I use a wide angle lens for this?

  • Wide angle lenses allow the introduction of perspective, as I explained in a post a couple of days ago.
  • You can use them close to a subject and still get enough in.
  • You can get the environment to “wrap around” the subject, as in the picture above.
  • It is easy to focus them, with very wide depth of field even at large apertures.
  • It is easy to stop them from shaking (the longer the lens, the more susceptible to blur).

So is it “the wider the better”? Yes, pretty much, but watch out for a few things:

  • In close-up portraits, wide is not the best, unless you want large noses.
  • Lenses can distort perspective in the corners, so avoid people in the corner unless you want conehead-shaped distortion in them.
  • They can be imperfect in the far corners.
  • They can distort angles even when you would rather that they did not.
  • Your flash may not cast light as wide as your lens.

So not a panacea for all cases. But in general, wide is great and at least one of your lenses ought to be very wide – in the range of 10-20mm on a crop camera, and 16-35 on a full-frame camera.

Three-Dee in flatland

Photographs are like flatland. There are just two dimensions. No depth.

That is why the pictures you take of the Grand Canyon or Cologne Cathedral look so boring when you see them at home. When you are on location, your brain gets clues from your stereoscopic vision, and from you moving, and even from sound. In a picture, all of those are missing.

The solution: use relative size. When a close object is really close, it looks large, and the background looks smaller. It is this that tells your brain that there is depth in the picture.

Like here, on the Golan Heights:

Every time something jumps out of the picture, it was taken like this:

  1. With a wide angle lens (say, 10-20mm on a crop camera; 16-35mm on a full-frame camera),
  2. With the photographer very close to the close object (in this case the barrel).

Another example:

As you see, this also distorts angles, which can give a pleasing dramatic effect.

And one more:

So if you want depth, zoom out and get close.

My day

First, more episodes of season 7 of “24”… the inimitable Chloe… one episode to go 🙁

Then, teaching, and then to the gallery in Toronto’s historic Distillery District:

That was a wide angle lens: 16mm on a full frame camera. Aperture mode, exposure compensation minus two stops, and flash on. (Aren’t wide angles great?)

Then, in the gallery, a snapshot of a gallery visitor and potential student of flash:

That was done with:

  • The camera on “Manual”…
  • …with exposure set to around minus two stops.
  • A CTO-gelled 580 EXII flash aimed to my right.
  • …and white balance on “Tungsten”

Isn’t TTL wonderful?

3D

A reminder of how to make your photos three-dimensional.

You do this by:

  1. Using a wide angle lens, the widest you can
  2. Getting close to something

In the photo of the Israeli tank, I used a 16mm lens on a full frame camera – this would be a 10mm lens on your crop factor camera.

The “close-far” effect is due to you being close to one thing and far from others. The wide lens enables you to compose like that.

So – get wide – get close!