How to become a better photographer in one day!

I take it as a compliment that people ask me how to become better photographers.  The question assumes that I know how to get a picture, which is nice.  I'm not always so confident myself.

My answer, and I see this a lot from other photogs much better than myself, is to shoot a lot of pictures and change the way you look at light and composition.

Want to get better fast?

Find a day-long event with a lot of people in a lot of situations and make pictures.  Go indoors, outdoors, bright sun, shade... all over the place.  Then think about each place you are shooting and how to make something good there.  It won't always happen, but it makes you think differently.

I shoot a lot of photos for my church.  I see my abilities and equipment as a gift from God, and something to share, so it affords me the opportunity to give back while also honing skills.  And that is good.

One caveat... If you do this with the purpose of thinking photographically, you will also not be participating as much in the event you are photographing.  Rather, you are participating, but not directly.  Two years from now, much of what people will remember from the event will be the photos that remain.

Here is a quick set of my favorites from an event we held last weekend, as an example.

The setup is an outdoor church service, a giant meal, followed by indoor and outdoor activities for all ages including sports, games, music, etc. etc.

For me.. one camera (6D) two lenses (24-70 and 70-200) and several bottles of water.

Early morning, partly cloudy, cold, set-up and practice by the band.  Layers.  Trees.  Sun. Expression... Push the button.

Good shady light?  Isolate the subject on a darker background.  Push button.


Now get closer.  Invade people's space a little bit.  Follow the advice of Robert Capa.  "If your photos aren't good enough, you aren't close enough."


And what's going on indoors?  Introduction of a new youth pastor and his family?  OK, change all of the camera settings, wait for an expression.  Push button.


Think documentary purposes... and unique angles.  Climb stairs.  Shoot wide...


Did I mention puffy clouds on blue sky?  Push button.


Lunch is served.  Giant window light, Yay!  Change camera settings.  Try to get some unique angle and an expression.  Push button.


Back outside.  Occasional bright sun followed by cloud cover.  Ride the shutter speed.  Basketball, volleyball.  Don't forget to change to continuous autofocus.  Timing.  Push the button.


Move around a lot but on purpose.  Stop dead in your tracks because one of the most wonderful old guys you know has paused for a reflective moment on the sidewalk.  Push the button.  I wish for all the world Mr. Lyons was standing out on the grass with trees in the background.


Think up a challenge like: Can I take a picture of a person flying a kite that includes the kite and the persons face?  Then wait for it...  push the button.


Back inside.  Change settings.  Dominoes going on.  Expression.  Push the button.  Don't give in to the players who want to see pictures of the other players' dominoes.


Back outside.. it's basketball.  Harsh shadows making silhouettes on the ground?  Cool.  Put them in the picture.  Or just take pictures of the silhouettes.. whatever.  Push the button.




Those shadows are good elsewhere too...


Busy backgrounds all around..  oh wait, we still have nifty clouds.  Throw horseshoe.  Push button.


Now keep doing that for a while and just wear yourself out.  That should do it.
Get permission from your significant other first.  Especially if taking all of these pictures means you won't be helping out much with a toddler or, say, eating together.

Seriously, it changes the way you look at situations and forces you to pay attention to camera settings, people's faces and everything that is going into your pictures.

All told, with a few breaks worked in throughout the day, I shot for about 10 hours in just about every situation imaginable (except studio lighting etc).  That is good practice!

Pick an event.  Let people know you will be there with a camera.  And shoot away.

Iron Tiger Night preview shots

Terrell High School is holding its first 'Iron Tiger Night,' which will be a competitive spectator environment for the weightlifting and off-season sporting kids. With live music, drill team performance, tug of war competitions and the like, it should be a lot of fun.

For our Thursday sports section, I set up for some fun feature shots of a couple of the participants. The idea was to leave some room for reversed text around the subjects.

Light test... and I like the shot too


I needed to do more to kill the light on my black cloth background, but time ran out..


So in Lightroom and Photoshop, I blacked it out...


A little closer...


I think this is my favorite... might need to bring some detail back to that arm though...


Have a great week, everybody..

Don J

Quick Pics - Costumes

My church hosts an annual "Fall Festival" event as a safe, indoor environment with lots of games, candy, food, games, candy, fun, and candy.

Did I mention the candy?

I volunteered to do a photo booth... surprise!

Since I don't get to try new lighting styles often enough, this was the perfect opportunity.

Karl came to assist, which was awesome, because we had a great turnout. With over 130 subjects (590 photos) in two hours, it was a workout.

The lighting idea was an edgy sort of look. The lighting was an Alien Bee B800 in a 48" Octabox above and directly in front of the subjects, and one AB 1600 on each side about 3' behind the subjects with their standard reflectors.

I used black foamcore as flags to keep the light off of the background.

The results... a lot of fun that worked for almost every costume. Not so great for group shots, but the big soft box was very forgiving in the front to make the shots workable, as with the Scooby Doo gang...

The results...

The Spiderman franchise seems to be doing well.. there were several varieties, but you can't go wrong with these sneakers...


Mario was there in search of his princess..


And there were lots of princesses to choose from... Pink hair takes the cake though.


Cute as a bug was never so true... bug babies were everywhere!




There was quite a large contingent of Jedi types... along with a few from the dark side. Inevitably, there was conflict.


Home-made Palace Guard outfit was cool... with the hat he was about 6' tall.


It was definitely a super-hero hot spot...


I'm thinking this wasn't a costume so much as just an excuse to get the skateboard out...


Cheerleading was popular..


Bewitching witches aplenty..


Animals from the wild...


and the not so wild.


Humor may change as we get older, but whoopie cushion humor is funny no matter your age...


Some parents got clever in the costume department.


And one was just fun to watch walk around...



I hope everyone had a fun and safe evening...

Happy shooting everyone.

Don J.

A Walk Around the Room

It is very easy to get chained to a spot when shooting something. For me, it is hard to set my camera bag somewhere, then take off without it. I usually wish I had a different lens or something, or I'm afraid that something will disappear.

Sooo.. I try very hard to look for different vantage points for any given subject.

In this case, I was shooting in Terrell's Performing Arts Center, which is a really nice venue to shoot in. This is especially the case if you can roam around a little bit to look for better spots to shoot from, which is easy when the event is a talent show try-out. No crowd, no stress, and fun light.

For a few performers, I was sitting out front switching between the 24-70mm for wide shots and the 70-200mm to get up close and personal.

Bored with that, I just left on the 70-200 and went for a walk. The results made me happy, so I thought I would share.

From the back of the stage, I could show the talented young lady at the piano with the empty hall as background, as well as the scattered judges and contestents in the seats.

I liked it, but wanted a closer shot too, and I noticed that I could line the subject up with the aisle for a clean background.... I liked it better than the first attempt.

Walking around, I saw that her face could be framed in the open piano. From here though, the microphone is in the way, the flag is distracting and there is an unfortunate shadow on her face.

Lower, the microphone still intrudes, but I like the overall effect of showing her feet under the piano, and luckily she moved out of the shadow.

Now it was time to go back out front. The tech folks were using a nice textured purple background light, which should not be wasted. What a nice surprise though to see that light was shining into the piano enough to get a really neat reflection in the raised lid, showing the inner workings. With the subject lit nicely against the uncluttered background... and lucky me that her song was long enough for me to make it around the room.

Sooooo... walk around the room, look for possibilities, and take advantage of unique angles.

Happy Shooting out there,

Don J.

Quick Pics - More Reunion Arena

Do you ever get sort of attached to a photo project a little more than you thought you would? I have no real affinity for Reunion Arena, but having watched it go from intact building to a mangled wreck, I now feel drawn to the place.

Of course, after a while, all of the photos start to look the same. The idea then, is to find new details and new angles to shoot from. (a full set of my Reunion shots here on Flickr)

Mangled twisted rebar... interesting...

Framing the shot within the photo is usually a nice touch. This has also been massively adjusted in Lightroom because I wanted the funky colors.

Walking farther than on previous visits gave me a shot of the arena with part of the skyline behind, and the Reunion Blvd. exit sign below.... I thought it was going to work better but it just turned out OK.

I thought this picture of the stairs would be neat, but after looking at it I think the broken glass and debris are what make it interesting.

Without any people to give scale to the size of the place, the machinery has to do the job. The area that looks like a ramp is a stairway covered in rubble. Where the equipment is sitting would have been blocked by the upper seating bowl.

I bought a used truck (new to me!) earlier in the week, so I wanted some tough looking truck shots... this was my favorite, with the sun doing some nice highlighting to pop it out from the background. You have to watch out for reflections in the shiny parts though...

Have a great weekend, everybody (and go make some pictures!)

Happy Shooting,

don J

Quick Pics - Fields of Plenty

don j.