As it turns out, I think I do not have flare and will not get flare. I kept trying different approaches: putting the sun in the photo, just on the edge of the photo, just out of the photo, and maybe a little further out. Nada. No flare.

It is one of those methods or little tricks that pop in my head every few days, when the sun it up and nothing else seems to be happening, and I try a few more shots out. I can never get any flare. I simply wanted to be able to control it, meaning, if I wanted it in a photo, what is the trick to making that happen. Or, conversely, if it is sunny and I want to avoid it, how do I do that.

Then, something came back to me. My walk around lens is a Nikkor AF 35mm f/2 D. I remember reading something a while back (actually, while reading info on my coveted lens, the Ai-S 35mm 1.4): that lens has almost no lens flare. Oh. Oops. So, I guess it is time to stop the experimenting and just be thankful for a lens that seems to be very well built.

And speaking of lens flare, in a slightly awkward ending, I love the tribute to lens flare in the Wall-E opening sequence. You have a computer animation which has lens flare. That is just cool. And it is proof that lens flare is cool, which I guess makes my lens a little less cool. Bummer. I bet that old, 1.4 would be cool!

The Cops Are On My Ceiling

What is a camera obscura? I did not find out till too long ago myself. If you do not know, just go Google it if you want more answer than this: if you black out a room and allow light in through a small hole, you will have a live, color, (upside down and backwards,) movie of life outside displayed inside your room. It is like a giant eyeball or like you are inside your camera.

Oh, you are, though…inside your camera that is. A literal translation of “camera obscura” from Italian, is simply “dark room”. So, you are in your camera, i.e. room.

I did this as a fun aside from daily life for my son’s birthday, today. I knew it was possible, and with our new black out drapes, it could become a reality. Actually, to test out the idea, all I did at first was wrap the drapes around a toilet paper tube, and even with terrible light leaks, I got discernible images of cars and trucks rolling across my ceiling.

Once I spent more time blacking the room out (though we still had plenty of light leaks), and replaced the toilet paper tube with a folder with a one-inch circle cut out, I filled almost half the room (ceiling, walls, and floor) with the upside down, backwards movie of the street outside. I had to frame the ceiling fan in the shot above for proof, as if the wildly skewed, oddly colored police truck were not convincing enough.

Try it! It’s a blast. All you need to do to get started is steal the toilet paper for a few minutes.

Assuming, from the quality of the photos, she was an experienced photographer, I actually asked how she used her flash to balance the light so beautifully. After a brief exchange, which I still have a hard time processing, I found out she had used a regular, old point-and-shoot camera! How could it be?

Even after knowing it was a compact camera, I could barely believe the photos I was seeing. The sky was so perfectly blue and not overly bright. The faces all looked like there were either reflectors coming up from below or some creative flash lighting. Not so. It must have been the perfect day for lighting!

I do not say that to diminish her skills in any way, but simply to say that having not thought about the lighting at all, those were perfectly lit photos. She was obviously playing with the angle and perspective, though. That much goes 100% to her credit.

Some folks get all the perfect light. I guess it all goes to reemphasize for me that light is what photography is all about. Know how to “read” it, manage it it, and how your equipment reacts to it.

My current humbling experience all started a few days ago with a wonderful meal and talk with a photographer friend of mine. It was not him, but just watching some of the videos he has produced recently really reminded me what a two-bit punk hack I am. It was not the technique, but how he captured the power of the story.

Then today, I shot a very “ok” family portrait session. That is “ok”, as in, I do not want to say more of what I really think. The harsh sunlight made things tough, not only for lighting, but for the quickly wilting subjects. Excuses aside, though, I really want to know what happened. How do I improve? What can I learn here?

One of the key problems was a lack of familiarity with my lighting equipment. Well, more accurately, I was so focused on trying to balance the flash with the blaring ambient, I totally lost connection with the subject. I did not direct them. I did not let them know what they should do. And, to top it all off, I was not really even paying attention to them when I put the camera up to my face (or before then either).

Ok. How to fix it, though? What are some keys to making it different, and I mean small practical things?

Limit location/scene. In an attempt to give the mother a wide choice of background, poses, and set-ups (for lack of a better word), which she expressly stated she wanted, I ended up magnifying my difficulty at getting the lighting right. What I should have done is pick one or two spots, the ones I knew would end up best in the end, and spend more time there. Then, after the lighting was set right, I would be free to interact and catch that nice moment.

Be the director. To help them be at ease and to have confidence in me, I must direct. If I notice somebody is not smiling, find a way to get that out of them (well, if you need a smile, which this photo was certainly expected to have). If they are all just standing straight, hands to their sides, in the classic boring pose (because the photographer did not know what better to do), I need to help position them, pose them, suggest movement, or whatever.

Well, there may be more things, but every other “should-a” I can think of really falls into one of those two. Honestly, I really think I am going to call them up, let them know I have some “ok” shots, but nothing really nice, and I would be more than willing to set up another shoot in the next couple days.

And for the cold-hearted motivation, as if I were not already motivated enough to want to make this right, I found out during the shoot they will be printing this photo with some printer in the US to show as an example to other families here in town of that printer’s services. In other words, if I can really excel in this shoot, my work would be displayed before a wide(r) audience, and I would be first in line to provide photographic services for their family and group photos. I am not terribly concerned about that (because I live and work in a different country anyway), but it would be throwing away an excellent opportunity.

So, to add on the title of this post a little bit, it is good to be humbled, especially publicly. That reveals the weak areas of our photography and, if publicly so, gives us great motivation to improve.

My first pieces of gear will be sunscreen and a hat if I can scrounge one up. I will take my backpack full of all kinds of gear, but will most likely need to leave that behind and carry a small choice of essentials. most likely, if it is like all the other days recently, the day will turn very bright and sunny. So, instead of uselessly cursing the brightness, I will embrace it as my friend and let it add to the feel of the day’s shooting.

So, what gear will I actually take?

It is not like I have a plan in my head for such and such a situation; I am just thinking this through here, in case it is of use to someone else out there. Regardless of lens choice, I will certainly take my lens hoods!

I will probably take my 35mm lens (so shooting close to the standard 50mm on a film camera). Wider would be nice, but that is as wide as my bag gets at the moment. Sad but true. One, I have my cropped sensor working against me. And two, I would have bought I wider lens, but going below 35mm, the f/stops were increasingly …um…un-bright. 35mm was the happy medium. It would be a happier medium if I had a full-frame camera, but this is all another topic. I will move on.

I might take my flash and one of my groovy handmade straw grid snoots. The flash would come in handy simply because it will be a bright day with nasty shadows, and I could fill those in if need be. I will use the snoot if I want to darken everything down a stop or two, then focus the flash on a specific subject, thus using light to draw the attention where I want it.

Oh…how will I trigger the light? I have some radio triggers, but they are el cheapo and too unreliable. If I go with my optical trigger (built into the flash unit), I will have to use my camera’s pop up flash to trigger it. Actually, now that I think of it, usually the pop-up flash affects the photo too much, but on a bright day, I most likely will not have a problem with that. So, I think that is my choice. That is also a great choice because it means minimal gear.

Honestly, what I would really like to take along, but do not yet own, is a Lumiquest SoftBox III. That is a portrait miracle maker. Basically, I could have a handy softbox for individual portraits and softly fill all those nasty shadows. I would not use it for every shot, mind you, but for a nice portrait (which I am sure folks will ask me to take for them), it would be grand to have along.

I have not mentioned much gear, I know, but this is going to be the kind of shoot where I want to blend in and be forgotten (well, ignored will work too). To be honest, that is my primary mode of functioning. And if you think the flash is not so subtle, if it is as bright as I think it will be, I bet even the flash will not be noticed unless they happen to be looking at it when it fires.

I will mainly be shooting that one lens. I will probably keep my Lensbaby handy to add something unique to some of the shots. Most likely, though, I will stick to the 35.

Oh…and the battery in the camera is almost dead. I guess I should go switch the batteries and charge that while I still remember.