For better pictures. Focus yourself first, then the Camera
We were on our way to take some pictures and he gave me some interesting advice on how to take pictures. It was interesting because it actually had nothing to do with my camera, or with the lighting or with the lens. He said, “Frank, you need to focus yourself before you focus the camera”.
What an interesting, and surprisingly true thing to say. I thought about it a lot, then started to practice doing just that – focusing myself first before I even started focusing the camera. I wasn’t sure how to really do it at first, but eventually figured out exactly what he was talking about.
First Step: Think and plan about what you want to photograph. Focus your mind, before your Camera.
Just going outside with your camera without a plan will typically yield pretty low odds of a good shot. If you want to have a good picture you need to plan first, to think about what you are trying to do before you go out and just take shots. Focus yourself first by understanding what it is you are trying to shoot, then focusing your camera will me that much easier.
Second Step: Take the Right Pictures at the Right Time. Focus your time, before your Camera.
I went the pier at 1 in the afternoon. It was a great place and looked like the pictures should be fantastic but when I got home the pictures were just, well, blah. What went wrong? The problem was that I was shooting the right place at the wrong time. I had not focused myself first, rather I went to the beach when it was convenient for me, not when the pictures would look the best.
Next time I went to Scripps Pier I planned much better. I went at Sunset. I brought a Tripod. And I spent time trying to get pictures that I had in my mind. The results were dramatically different this time around. I loved the pictures and I realized that I needed to take the right picture at the right time. I could spend all day trying to take pictures at Scripps Pier, or I could go there at sunset and take 5 minutes of pictures that would be better than the pictures I took all day. Focus your time, before you focus your camera.
Step 3 – Go to the right place. Focus on something new first to capture something interesting with the camera.
Einstein said, “Insanity is going to the same place to take pictures and expecting different pictures that you had the last time”. Well he didn’t exactly say that but it was something close and he was right (if he said that). I do it myself all the time – I go to my favorite spots over and over again because I know that I can take a good picture there. I get home and the pictures that I take look exactly what they looked like before. It’s not rocket science to figure it out. They look the same because I am essentially taking the same picture!
Going back into your comfort zone is comfortable but you can’t grow as a photographer unless you push yourself to increase your range. Focus your mind to think of new creative places, go there and take pictures. Take pictures of places and people that are not in your comfort zone and you just might find that you take some photographs that will surprise you.
Step 4 – Bring the Right Equipment.
How many times have I run out of the house forgetting to take the right lens, or my flash, a spare battery or my tripod. Not having the right equipment is the killer of so many good photograph opportunities. I think you start to learn how to pre-plan the equipment that you will most likely need while you are on your way to shoot something.
One way beyond this is to keep a checklist of things that you need and then just reference it before you go out. Basically do the same thing that pilots do with their aircraft before taking off. In the excitement of things there is always something you need. Or, alternatively you can do what I do and that’s basically just keep everything but my camera and lenses in the trunk so I am always prepared no matter where I go.
Step 5 – Focus your mind and your attitude.
I used to fish a lot. There was this sixth sense you would get in your body when you are going to catch fish. Maybe it’s optimism but it worked. If I felt like I was going to catch a fish, I was able to. If I felt negative, I just sat there with my pole in the water all day. Photography is the same way. You need to focus your attitude to a positive mental state first before you can take pictures. Remember the camera is just a reflection back to you what you are taking pictures of. A negative attitude will rarely result in fishing out the right image.
Focus, its just a matter of being succesful.
I suppose learning to focus yourself before doing anything is just a good idea in every facet of your life and work. The ability to focus is the number one quality I see in successful people. They can work, without distraction and towards perfection in the task at hand. Their focus allows them to get stuff done and done right. If you look at successful people, this is generally true.
Your camera focuses you, not the other way around.
I noticed over time, my camera started to focus me more than I was focusing it. It was helping me to make better decisions and spend more time thinking about what I was doing. I was slowing down and thinking before I clicked the shutter. It made my pictures that much better, and me, that much happier.
Parkour and Flour with Lights
Photographer Ben Franke recently published a series called Parkour and Flour. I found the work to be so compelling that I called my nephew and his cousin to try to take some pictures using the same techniques.
Ingredients
To take the photos required a little bit of preparation and materials. What I used included 1) 4 bags of flour, 2) an single Elinchrom BX 500 lighting unit, 3) Nikon D4 and 24-70mm lens, and 4) a reflector to bounce light back on the subjects.
To be honest having a second speedlight to fill the image with light would have been much easier and taking these images at night required that I completely operate in manual focus mode since there is no way, my camera could capture focus in the darkness automatically. I used my Iphone flashlight to light them up first, used autofocus and then locked that focus in manual mode. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn’t.
Setup
It took awhile to figure it all out. At first I wanted to try to light them by backlighting, but that didn’t work at all so I tried putting the lights at about 90 degrees and side light them and that worked well. The other thing I learned was that you couldn’t use that much flour otherwise it would completely obscure the subject in flour. The best thing is to shake a little bit on them before they jump.
It was a real fun project.
How to frost a cupcake the BabyCakesNYC way.
The BabyCakesNYC frosting swoosh. Can you do it? Erin McKenna invented it. It makes her cupcakes look even more delicious and it is the perfect stylized way to showcase the smooth creamy veganized frosting she invented. now you can go behind the scenes and see how to do it. shhh… don’t tell anybody because it’s a secret!
The frosting is out of this world. And that frosting swoosh? Well that’s out of this world too.
Tilt Shift
Check out Big Sur. Looks teeny tiny. I love this place.
And this teeny tiny helicopter
And tiny Los Angeles
And a tiny road in San Diego
And little people in a boat
I like Tilt Shift photography. I am working on a new gallery that should be fun.
Babycakes Larchmont
I headed up to Babycakes Larchmont in Los Angeles to help Erin and Elizabeth with some photographs for their new pre-packaged baking goods.
It’s a pretty big step for Erin’s business actually. By selling pre-made and packaged Cake mixes she is able to essentially make her business national (international actually) and that means expansion and more potential.
Everyday Erin is signing up more and more re-sellers of these boxes and that is just great news. I ended up taking quite a few pictures while I was there. Not only did I get pictures of the boxed goods but some of the insane stuff she has created. She started with cupcakes, moved to cakes, donuts and everything else you could imagine. Erin has locations in New York, DisneyWorld, Los Angeles and soon to be in Chicago and San Francisco. The business is booming.
If you want to check out all the images, they are in this gallery – Delicious BabyCakes Photos. Or feel free to browse a few here.
Sequoia’s in the Mist
It seemed more than a bizarre irony to me. There they stood before my eyes like ghost. But they were more real than I could ever be, older than my mind could comprehend, and more beautiful than anything that I could ever conjure up in my own imagination. To see them shrouded in mist made them seem more ancient, more somber, more grand but less real and perhaps more of another world than of this one. But these were Sequoia’s the largest and most mysterious trees on the planet, and from what I could tell, locked in an infinite bond with the earth which was more permanent than my own.
The experience was humbling, perhaps spooky but something I was grateful for. I was there where I had arrived. I wasn’t going to come but I did. The drive was too long. It was raining. I needed snow chains I didn’t have. The tires looked like they needed to be changed. I needed to work. The roads might be closed. I didn’t have a hotel. I don’t like driving alone. I seemed to have every excuse not to be there, but there in fact I was. Something had pulled me there. A compulsion to photograph them. An intrigue to see something new. A promise made to a friend. I was there. That is all that mattered now.
From conversations, plans are hatched.
I was explaining my new found photography hobby with him when he told me he had been searching months for a photo of Sequoia’s to put on his wall. While I had never even seen a Sequoia tree in my life, Ian, my friend, was convinced that the tree’s held the secret to the beauty of creation and our individual seemingly small place in this world. I figured I had to go. Not only to see what he was talking about but to somehow try to create the photo that he was trying to find. It was a project. It was a reason to go to visit a beautiful place.
For weeks I procrastinated. I checked the weather convincing myself that I needed to go on a brilliant sunny and cloudless day. The weather was fickle and plans postponed. Finally, I found myself in Los Angeles on another project and decided I just needed to go. I didn’t even check the weather. Be damned with the plans. I was going to go regardless and just see and photograph what I could.
The weather was terrible on the drive up. I cursed myself as I drove up through Visalia through the pouring rain and then dense fog. There was zero visibility. I had driven hundreds of miles and wasn’t going to get a single good shot. Or that was what I thought at least.
Then I am there. I am amazed!
I fumbled with my camera at first. My fingers were cold but it wasn’t because of that. I fumbled because the scene that was unfolding in front of me seemed so temporary. The dense fog was lifting briefly and the sun was beginning to burst through,and as it did, it was lighting up the most immense tree I had ever seen. I felt I needed to get the picture before it went away. I fumbled than I snapped the picture praying that I had the camera settings correct. The fog did return almost immediately. I’m glad I got the shot. It wasn’t the last however but the first of many awe inspiring moments to come during the day.
From a Tree, to a General, to a Monument
Fossils of Sequoia Trees have been found that date back up to 180 million years ago. Now most trees died off during the ice ages and only a few species actually survived and the Sequoia just happened to be one of them. The Sequoia over thousands of years managed to survive fires, earthquakes, natural disasters, ice ages and every other sort of disaster but it wasn’t until they were discovered by White hunters in the early 1800’s that they almost met their demise. Soon after finding the first Sequoia the hunters cut the massive tree down. It reportedly took 5 men working 22 days straight to cut it down. The tree, which was called the “Discovery Tree”, was estimated to be 1,300 years old after they counted the tree rings in the trunk.
Over the coming years, massive saw mills were constructed in the Sierra Nevada and the Sequoia Tree’s were cut down by the thousands and milled. Ironically however given their size the wood was not considered premium because the trees would often splinter and shatter when their massive weight hit the ground. Imagine how many ancient trees were destroyed during that time for their wood? Famous named trees such as the Mark Twain tree was even cut down during this time.
In 1890 in order to preserve the few remaining Sequoia’s left in the world, the Sequoia National Park was established. Today, Sequoia’s pretty much only grow in this relatively small stretch of land in Central California. The Park is known for some of the highest trees in world but also for the highest peeks as Mount Whitney is located in the park as well.
I spent most of time at the park in a place called the Giant Forest. Not only is it a very cool name for a Forest but it contains 5 of the 10 largest trees in the world. There is no other place like it in the world. Two of the most famous trees in the world can be found here; the General Sherman Tree and the General Grant Tree.
The General Sherman Tree is known as the largest tree in the world. It is not the highest but the largest in terms of volume. This tree was so massive that I had a hard time capturing it entirely, particularly since there was a stream of people lining up to take pictures under the tree many of whom were asking me to take their pictures for them.
The General Grant Tree probably would have been named President Grant Tree had they waited two more years to name it. You see the tree was named in 1867 for General Grant who two years later in 1869 was elected as President of the United States. The tree was later designated as the Nations Christmas tree and later was designated a monument and a memorial to soldiers that died in the war.
While photographing the General Grant Tree I had a stroke of luck. The sunburst momentarily from behind a tree in the distance creating a magical sparkle and warmth to the image. The General Grant tree was one of the most memorable trees in the Giant Forest.
The Perfect Day
Sometimes you pick the perfect day. Sometimes you pick the worst day. Today, I had picked the perfect day. It was winter. It was Saturday. The park was nearly empty and here I was with my camera and Sequoia National Park was unfolding before my eyes through ever bend and turn in the road. Sometimes I would pull over, stop my car and take pictures trying to capture the experience of driving through this park.
Different elevations bring different experiences
The park is well laid out. Like Yosemite to the North this park provides many different experiences based on the elevation. When you enter there is no snow. The trees are rugged and deer roam the landscape.
As you drive to 6,000 elevation the snow becomes deep and you reach the massive Sequoias. From here you can visit the Giant Forest Trail. A mile long walk around a river bed (which is completely frozen) is a peaceful nature walk. I found myself at times plunging almost waist deep into fresh snow. You never knew how deep you would go. I held my camera above my head and walked, determined to keep it safe even if I was not.
A peaceful bench to sit on. I did not however and just took pictures of what the view would be like from it. With a warm jacket you could sit here and just see what nature might do over time.
Fallen trees were a reminder here of the passing of time and the circle of life. Smaller trees would fall and burn making more room for the bigger trees. Perhaps survival of the fittest is the rule of the land everywhere.
Appreciating perspective through big and small
The only way to truly appreciate the Sequoia’s is to see them in relation to everything else. The trees are so massive that a photograph doesn’t do them justice. I spent some time trying to find that perspective with things around the Sequoia’s.
Two large Sequoia’s provide a picture frame for their little brother in their giant shadows.
Another photographer stopping along the road to photograph Giants. He is a tiny, tiny man.
Giants in the mist
While the sun did shine. I was glad for the contrast of the day. Sometimes sunny, sometimes cloudy, sometimes foggy it didn’t matter it was showing me all of the seasons in one day. I was lucky. If I had come on a sunny and cloudless day as I had planned. It would have been crowded. I probably would have gotten beautiful pictures of sunny meadows and huge trees. I probably will return again someday to see that. I hope it is soon. You can check out my gallery here to see the rest of the pictures of Giants in the Mist.
The Nashster at Babycakes
I went up to Babycakes in Los Angeles at their Larchmont location today. I was taking pictures of all of the cool new and delicious things that they have come up with in the last few months including some incredible boxed cake, cookie and brownie mixes.
Kevin Nash my nephew was there and we made an absolute mess of the kitchen. I’m off to Sequoia National Park tomorrow to see some big trees.
Lovely Day in La Jolla at Windansea Beach
Another beautiful day in paradise. We did have rain but this afternoon it cleared up.
