Every spring, after the rains, the Santa Rosa Plateau comes alive with life. The vernal pools are full, the wildflowers are blooming, and the wildlife are coming out of hibernation.

The garter snake population is particularly active and in the middle of mating season. They seem to hang out at the edge of the vernal pools; the thicker females can have as many as 10-15 males around them at a time.

As you walk the boardwalk over the vernal pool, a snake might pop up from the bottom for a breath of air and swim on the surface for a minute or two. That’s what this little guy was doing before he disappeared toward the bottom again.

The image was taken with a Nikon D300 and a Nikkor 70-200 f2.8 lens at 200mm. The exposure was for 1/320 at f8 and an ISO of 640.

I shot Julia’s senior portraits in October, but I did a TERRIBLE job!! I got the opportunity to shoot her again last weekend.

For the first shoot I traveled to El Segundo and for some reason, I just didn’t feel comfortable or competent. As a result, the images produced were not good. They were out of focus and poorly composed and I wasn’t satisfied with them.

My biggest problem was posing. I had no idea how to communicate how I wanted her to pose, what would looked good, what would work in different situations. The images were technically correct in regards to exposure and such, but they sucked as far as the subject matter.  Julia wasn’t the problem. I didn’t make her look good.

I spent the next few months learning how to pose subjects. I went to FEO meetings with Jen Disney and other photographers who taught me a lot. I watched Bambi Cantrell on CreativeLive. I went to WPPI and went to every posing workshop I could attend. In addition, I went online to photographers that I respected and looked through their sites for poses I liked and studied them for subtle hints and looks. Also, I learned about lighting. Hardly a posing workshop is presented where lighting is not talked about. I talked to Rob of Jessica Elizabeth Photography about lighting and how to best use it and learned a lot.

I examined the images and why they were out of focus. I was using my 50mm 1.4 lens which is tack sharp, but only under certain conditions. I learned that it doesn’t focus well in quickly changing situations. I watched what other photographers were using and a lot of them use a 70-200 2.8. So this time, that is what I used most of the time. The focus issue didn’t disappear, but it got better. A lot better.

Finally, I asked Julia if I could try shooting her again. This time we went to the Mission Inn in Riverside, CA. This time I felt confident and comfortable. I was able to spot good locations, good light, and was able to communicate how I wanted her to pose.

When the light wasn’t right, I was able to fill it in with  a touch of flash. I tried some different things after I got “the” shot. Some worked and some didn’t, but I was comfortable and learned in the process.

So? What were the lessons learned?

One, I still have a focus issue. I can get landscapes and wildlife in focus, but have trouble with portraits. I think part of it is because I rush my shots. I think another part of it is my method of shooting, but I will experiment and elaborate more on that later. The important part of that is that I am still working on it.

Two, identify your weakness and work on it. I learned how to get out of my comfort zone and pose people. I learned how to identify light and modify it for the look I want. Am I great? NO! But I’m getting better.

Please leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Mountain Weasel

If you’ve been following me, you know I love Bodie, CA. The ghost town turned into a state park is one of my favorite places to visit at almost any time of year.

I was there last year in the early spring on a full day shoot at the park. I shot from sunrise to sunset. In the middle of the day, this little guy popped out from beneath the snow and started scampering around. He is a mountain weasel (Mustela altaica). It was the first time I’ve ever seen one.

I got this one good shot after working and waiting for over an hour. He would dive down between the snow and the bank and then suddenly appear somewhere else. I sat down behind a small bush, put the camera on the sticks, and waited, sitting fairly still. Eventually, he came out, posed for me, and took off across the field. Never saw him again.

The image was taken with a Nikon D300 and a Nikkor 70-200 f2.8 lens with 2x teleconverter. The exposure was for 1/800 of a second at f6.3 and an ISO of 200.

Please leave comment and let me know what you think.

San Fransisco Grizzly

This was taken in one of the best zoos that I have been to, the San Fransisco Zoo. It isn’t big or famous, but it is both visitor and animal friendly.

The grizzly bear enclosure is really nice and provides a fairly natural. The only problem is the glass between the visitors and the animals gets very smudgy. As a result, I had to either wipe it off or find a none smudged place to shoot through.

The image was taken with a Nikon D300 and a Nikkor 70-200 f2.8 lens at 110mm. The exposure was 1/320 at f2.8 and an ISO of 200.

Please leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Focus on the Eyes

With any image that has an animal in it, it is critical to have the eyes in focus. Humans are drawn to the eye. If the eyes are not in focus, there is a disturbing feeling about the photograph.

If the depth of field is very shallow and it is only possible to get one eye in focus because the one eye is closer than the other, it is important to keep the closest eye in focus. The closest eye is the one that people look at first and expect to be sharp.

In the above image of a…(ok, I have no clue what that is)…you can see the eyes are in focus. Even though the nose and the rest of the image is out of focus, the image still works. Why? Because the eyes are clear and in focus.

The image was taken with a Nikon D300 and a 70-200mm f2.8 lens and a 2x teleconverter. The exposure was for 1/200 of a second at 5.6 and an ISO of 200.

Please feel free to leave a comment and tell me what you think.

Death Valley Wildflowers

Death Valley National Park is not the first place that comes to mind when you think of wildflowers, but in the spring and from certain angles, it can seem that the desert floor is carpeted with them. This is the road from Furnace Creek to Badwater.

The image was taken with a Nikon D300 and a Nikkor 70-200 f2.8 lens. The exposure was for 1/250 of a second at f5.6 and an ISO of 200.

Please feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think.

The Devil's Golf Course

This image was taken at The Devil’s Golf Course in Death Valley. It is a close up of one of the salt ridges.

It was taken with a Nikon D300 and a Nikkor 70-200mm, f2.8 lens. The exposure was for 1/320 of a second at f8 and an ISO of 200.

Please feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Shooting in a dark theater is a challenge, but I have learned to trust my D300 and pushing the ISO up to 1600. If I go much over that, I begin to get some noisy images. Open up my 70-200 to f2.8 and wait for the spot to hit the subject and I can get some pretty good images.

Annie

Orphan Girls

The other thing I did was produce a picture of the entire cast. Not an easy job, given the situation. Low light, limited room, and a wide subject on stage. The solution? A panorama. Yes, a panorama. I took a series of shots of the cast and stitched them into a panorama. Photoshop has a great panorama stitching capability.

Cast and Crew

If you want to see more of the images from Annie you can see them in my gallery.

Please feel free to leave a comment and tell me what you think.

It was a fun evening. I realized that we have some very talented and passionate people on our campus. The acting was good, the singing was good, and the photography was fun. OH! That last part was about me.

Shooting in VERY low light and getting the camera to capture images that were usable was a challenge, especially as I was kind of stuck in a seat and couldn’t get a variety of angles. Also, flash photography was not allowed. Did any of that stop me? Noooooo.

Using the 70-200 f2.8 wide open on aperture priority  with the D300′s ISO set to auto (essentially 1600) yielded some good quality images. I never cease to be amazed at the way the D300 handles the relatively high ISO of 1600. It just seems to take the image and remove the noise. Result? Good, usable images. You can view all of the images here: Nature Light Photo Galleries.

As for the kids: like I said, they were passionate about what they were doing. Not all of them were great actors or great singers or great dancers, but they got up on stage and performed. You could tell that they loved what they were doing and the were proud to do it. They didn’t care about what others thought or how they compared to others, they just did it. It made me realize that to succeed in anything, you have to do the same thing.

Almost as a side note, a parent approached me asking if I was Mr. Williamson. After confirming her suspicions and steeling myself for the onslaught of “I want to talk to you about how my kid is doing in your class…”, she introduced herself as the mother of the lead in the play and she wanted to let me know that I was her son’s favorite teacher. I had her son in my class THREE years ago!!! I didn’t even think he remembered me. To tell the truth, I was TOTALLY not ready for that and very pleasantly surprised.

Like I said, to succeed you have to be passionate about what you are doing. The results might surprise you.

You can see all of the images at The Nature Light Photography Gallery.

What Did I Learn?

This was a new challenge. I have never shot sports inside before. Water polo and swimming? Yes. Softball? Yes. Rodeo? Yes. But never indoor basketball.

I have read where the lighting situation inside most high school gyms is difficult. JEEZ!! Is that true!!!! My plan was to take my SB600 and shoot with a fairly fast piece of glass, the 70-200 f2/8. It worked. Kind of.

While the flash did freeze the action fairly well, focus was a bit of a problem. The lens wouldn’t lock on to subjects well and fast enough. I think this is due to the very low light conditions and the difficulty of following the subject.

I basically planted myself under one basket and shot from a seated position. The length of the lens made it difficult to keep the subject in the viewfinder as they came closer to my end of the court and the proximity of the players made good composition difficult. You can see my results here.

You can see the limited field of view and difficulty of composition.

I brought my 50mm f1.4 also, but it limited my ability to isolate the players or what I wanted to shoot. I also had the D70 kit lens, a 18-70mm f3.5-4.5, but I didn’t think that it was fast enough. But I wasn’t getting the shots I wanted or needed, so I tried it.

I was surprised. It focused quickly, the flash froze the subjects well, and the images were usable!! The subjects weren’t too close for a good composition and I could compose fairly well.

With a wider lens, the composition is better.

The only problem was that the on camera flash left some weird shadows behind the subjects. It’s not the lens, but me not utilizing the flash well.

Harsh shadows caused by on camera flash.

I think I really need a better flash, something like a SB900 and some sort of remote to fire it off from a distance. I have seen sports shooters utilize two flashes mounted on stands placed at the corners of the floor and triggered by remotes such as Radio Poppers or Pocket Wizards. I would like to try that set-up next time.

The bottom line is that next time I WILL get the flash off of the camera and try to get two flashes that I can work together to improve the lighting situation.

All-in-all, I think it was a good shoot. OH, and the staff won!!!