Yeah, I'm still sitting home. Indefinitely. I've applied for jobs pretty much everywhere, for every Super Puma, AW139, S76 and S61 job from Canada, Africa, the Middle East to the Far East and a few spots in between, but the slow down in the oil market still has the entire industry in turmoil. The oil free fall has stopped, and stabilized up around $50 a barrel, but I think it'll need to be back around $65 before the exploration market ramps up again. Exploration is dead, and all the production operations have cut back significantly, even extending offshore worker's tours to cut back on crew change flying, and the helo operators have retained the bare minimum of essential personnel. There are a ton of guys unemployed, with more joining the ranks daily, and there doesn't appear to be growth or oppurtunities anywhere. Still, I don't regret being on the exploration end of things when the music stopped, as the constant change and challenges were invigorating, but it sucks to be unemployed just the same. Luckily, I'm debt free. I can sit quiet for awhile, even though I really don't want to. Just no hunting trips to Africa until I secure some income.
In the meantime, I've been hiking, fishing, mountain biking, and sitting on the back deck shooting squirrels. And taking photos. Since there is very little helicopter activity or travel to write about, I figure a photography post is in order.....
I won't deign to give advice on how to take a great photo, as what constitues a great photo is highly subjective, but I can tell you how I take my photos!
Gear is secondary, as there have been some amazing shots made with camera phones, and most of my earlier work was taken with a point and shoot, but good equipment does make things easier. I've done quite a lot of research and experimentation, and I believe I've now got the perfect gear, at least for the work and travel that I hope to get back to shortly. I've been shooting all over this globe with Sony's NEX7, and now with their very high end A7II, which provides a rugged professional level body that shoots full frame yet is still small enough to comfortably travel with. "Full frame" refers to the sensor inside the camera that actually grabs the light coming in through the lens...and bigger is definitely better, and the image quality is other worldy. You will not get this sort of resolution with a point and shoot, let alone a phone camera. Full frame SLRs are just too big and heavy for my liking. The Sony A7II is definitely better suited to touring International, and it's definitely rugged enough for backwoods adventures anywhere your travels should take you. For lenses I use the high-end Zeiss glass lenses made for the A7, about three to four times the price of Sony's standard FE lenses, (FE designates lenses specifically designed for the full framed sensor mentioned earlier) but the crisp images make it well worth it. I think I'm fully outfitted for just about anything with an FE 16-35mm/F4, an FE 24-70mm/F4, a prime 35mm/F2.8 and an FE 70-200mm/F4 G lens. If I had to take just one, it'd be the 16-35mm, with the 24-70mm as a close second. But as I said, gear is secondary. Good gear will not fix a crap photo, but it can definitely improve a well framed photo.
And what makes a good photo? For me, it's all about framing. You don't want anything in the photo distracting from what you are striving to capture, and you want to impart a sense of movement, to draw the eye, to capture striking shapes and patterns, to excite. Think bare bones. Cut out everything that distracts from what you are attempting to capture, and then look for shapes in what's left that draws your eye or creates movement or patterns. Michael Freeman wrote an excellent book titled
The Photographer's Eye which I think is the first book I've seen that really gets into how to take a great shot. Most photography books are all about f stops and ISO settings and depth of field, which is all critical knowledge, but without knowing how to frame the shot, it's sort of useless. Practice is also paramount. Most professional photographers will advise that if you want to learn how to take great photos, take A LOT OF PHOTOS! Easy enough in today's digital world, but it's not about just taking tons of quick snapshots, it's really striving to work towards something you'll be proud of, that you'll want to share, and you will start seeing improvement as time progresses. Consider photography to be a journey rather than an accomplishment, and look for the art in everything.
My personal journey towards where I wanted to be as a photographer often saw me presented with an obvious opportunity to take a great shot, but I just didn't know how to frame it. I have collections from my favourite world class photographers, images that really strike me, so I have an idea of what I'm striving for, but I didn't know how to get there. I took the photos anyway, lots of them, zoomed in, zoomed out, different perspectives, different angles, then I'd eventually head home and using any one of the many photo editing softwares, tried my best to crop the photo that I had envisioned, or at the least, hoped for. Cropping afterwards taught me that the lady in fuchsia really draws my eye away from the subject, so crop her out, and if I place the crop across this diagonal line I lend some movement to the photo, apply the rule of thirds, dividing the frame in thirds and putting the main focus at an intersection, and if I include this spot of light in the crop it really adds to the dynamics of the shot, and I did this over and over and over again, until I started seeing all those options and corrections through the view finder itself. Often in the edit, I'd notice for the first time the light post sticking out of someone's head, or the off kilter horizon. Eventually through trial and error I learned how to take the photo in the heat of the moment with my camera, as opposed to taking a wide angle shot and doing my best to sort it later on the computer. I think this trial and error method, of trying to "fix" my poorly framed photos on the computer after the fact, and reviewing what I liked about certain photos after correcting them, or what ruined shots, really taught me what to look for when I actually looked through the view finder of the camera. I taught my eye what to look for. I started to see marked improvement in my photography.
Now if I see something I want to capture, I frame it in the view finder as I want to see the final result. I do not shoot a ton of shots of anything, maybe two or three at most, just in case there is some movement and I get some blurred shot, but I see no point in taking tons of photos of the same thing. After a day out, there are just far too many shots to sort through if I've been over zealous with the shutter release. It's better to take the time to frame it right the first time. I started limiting myself as well. For the longest time I shot with a non-zooming prime lens, a 35mm, the standard for war photographers for years. While I was often frustrated, it taught me to think more beforehand, and once again, I noticed an improvement in my "eye". Another useful tool is to force yourself to take photos. If you wait for that long planned trip to Paris, standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, to take the shot of a lifetime, unless you've crafted your photography into something resembling art beforehand, prepare to be disappointed in your photos. I appreciate great shots taken in one's backyard far over ones taken in front of the Taj Mahal, because you had to go looking for that shot. Develop your eye, there are great shots everywhere! There are quite a few "Take a Photo a Day" projects that will definitely help you to take better photos, and force you to see things differently.
I'll discuss the mechanics a little. You can set your camera on the green full auto square and hope for the best results from your manufacturer's processing algorithms, or you can delve into the numerous "scene" options provided by the manufacturer, trying to best match the "Scene" you are trying to capture, but a little understanding towards a few basics will go a very long way. I was lucky to have started back when manual was the only option, so it's more or less natural, but if you practice, it will come. The basics are; the more light coming through your lens to the film or sensor, the better, otherwise you may get blurry shots. You could use a tripod to offset this. The faster the shutter speed, the less risk of a blurred shot, but the less light getting through your lens. ISO settings affects digital cameras the same as different ISO films of days of yore. The lower the ISO setting, the sharper and richer the photo, but once again, it requires a great deal of light getting through the lens. That's how the tiny lenses on your phone are able to catch low light photos, by raising the ISO, but with higher ISOs, the more grain you get, and the grain quickly deteriorates to the point of getting unusable photos. Today's cameras are capable of extremely high ISOs, and can take unblurred photos in very low light, but the trade off is excessive grain. That's why pros put out for the "fastest" lens money can buy, to keep the ISOs relatively low for a given shot. Besides shutter speed, your lens aperture setting directly affects how much light is getting to the sensor, but also greatly affects depth of field. A wide open aperture will allow for the most light getting though, but only a very narrow band of the photo will be sharp. Called "bokeh", this allows for some very cool shots, with everything before and after the point of focus blurred, but once again, you need an expensive "fast" lens. "Fast" refers to the maximum aperture, measured as a fraction, so the smaller the number, the faster the lens, and the greater the cost. An f/2.8 lens will cost far more than an f/4 lens, which will cost more than an F/5.6 lens, this number being the largest aperture the lens is capable of. You will get far better "bokeh" with an expensive "fast" lens set at it's maximum aperture. If you want everything in focus, like a certain landscape shot where you really want the foreground and background in focus, you can use a much smaller aperture setting to get that "depth of field", but the resulting slow shutter speeds to gather the necessary light often yields blurred shots. You can crank up the ISO but you add grain. It would be better to use a tripod and leave the ISO low. Of course the camera can sort all this for you on the "green" setting, but if you want to improve, understanding of these functions and how they relate to each is other is paramount. That being said, I generally shoot in aperture priority mode, with the ISO locked at 100, and let the camera sort the shutter speed for the exposure, but I will close down the aperture if required for depth of field, and raise the ISO if absolutely required, under/over expose as required, but Av priority would be my default setting, with it wide open.
And then there's "White Balance". Your camera requires a frame of reference to capture the colours of a scene accurately, and in the fully automatic mode, it uses algorithms to calculate the proper white balance, and the "Scene" modes will further evaluate your scene's requirements for more accurate renderings. The colours of your photo will vary depending on if your camera thinks it's shooting in daylight, on a cloudy day, in shade, with a flash, with various indoor lighting, etc.. Most cameras allow you to select the "White Balance" manually, but I generally don't bother, I shoot in .RAW and fix it later.
RAW versus JPEG. Google it. You'll get tons of hits, and the question generates countless opinions, but the bottom line is; shoot in your camera's default setting, generating .jpeg image files, and you can always adjust the colours and contrast somewhat with any photo editing software afterwards. Just make sure the quality output is as high as your settings allow. Shooting in RAW, the file format of what the sensor itself actually captures, before your camera's internal computer compresses it into a much smaller .jpeg file, allows you to take complete control of your images, as you can now control exactly how to process your images into generally far better .jpeg files for sharing. It can be a great deal of work, but I've been able to bring life into many dull photos that would have been sent to the trash bin if I had shot in .jpeg.. It can be a pain, but it does give you more options.
Shooting with Sony gear, I've recently swapped from years of Adobe's Photoshop, and Apple's own "Photos" editing software, to Sony's "Capture One 9". I had to watch more than a few video tutorials and practice on tons of shots, but I think I have a very fluid workflow developed, and I can process my RAW files into .jpegs rather quickly, and I like the control it gives me over the finished project. Editing RAW files does not change the original, it just allows you to control the output .jpeg file, so most who shoot in RAW retain those files. I don't bother. I figure once I've processed the photo into a .jpeg I'm happy with, I dump all the huge RAW files. Depending on what I'm doing, I may just let the camera shoot directly to .jpeg, as it does a pretty fine job of rendering very good shots, and most of my work was shot directly as a .jpeg, but the RAW files are a fun option if I have the spare time, which I certainly do.....
I do enjoy back and white photos as well, but I shoot in colour and convert the shots afterwards. Shooting in RAW and using Capture One, you have a ton of control over the finished product, as you can grab specific colours and darken and lighten them as you want.
For photographing people, unless you can blend into the crowd and not stand out, I always ask. I generally just raise my camera to show my intent and give a questioning look, and most don't mind. If they do, I smile and do not take the shot.
So get out there and start taking photos! Frame it down to the bare essentials of the shot. And have fun!
