Perspective

Superman waits on the sidewalk for his mother to emerge from the bookstore

I've been looking at thousands of news photographs lately, shot by some of the industry's most notable photojournalists. What's intrigued me is the varying perspectives.  In other words, a rather mundane shot can be enhanced into something incredibly  interesting if the photographer simply changes the perspective.  I viewed some of James Nachtwey's works where he shot an average street scene through the jagged opening of blown-out wall, the rubble of the wall framing the shot, making it far more interesting.

I believe this is where photography can lend itself to life, i.e., if we work to change our perspective than we may see things in a more interesting or enlightened way.  For many, they are attached to their own perspective, seeing it as the one and only truth of the world.  If they could only release themselves from that grasp and move a few inches either way it may open up an entirely different world for them.  What would happen if perspective were applied to politics, religion, social morays, etc.?  I contend that we would have a much more inclusive, tolerant, and compassionate world.  Move a little to the right or left and see what the world looks like then.

New 50mm And Nachtwey

I picked up a new Nikon 50mm f1.8 lens for my camera the other day.  Its faster than my 18x200, that has been my travel lens of choice for many years.  The 50mm doesn't have a telephoto option, so it forces me to adjust my position relative to the subject, which is an added challenge for me.  With a telephoto lens I just zoom in or out as necessary, which is some respects has spoiled me a bit.

I watched James Nachtwey's War Photographer the other night and was dumbfounded firstly by his images, but moreover the amount of human suffering that he has borne witness to over his 25+ year career.  His compilation of work, Inferno, is filled with such tragic images that I could barley get through it without having to walk away and settle myself.  Nachtwey has reminded me of the immense human capacity for injuring and killing one another, and just how distant many of our lives are from the day-to-day suffering that occurs in so many places around or world.

Shots From Today

Hanging out on the street looking cool

The Look

This little guy lives in what can only be described as a gated Socialist community.

A lone tree stands in the fog

Brothers I think

Uncle Simón

She wouldn't stop smiling.  Awesome.

This little guy was really shy, but we turned it into a game.

Chicago

Chicago-style houses. What a great city!

I spent a few days in Chicago this past week, a city that I don't have a lot of exposure to. I made it a point to walk around a little bit and explore with my camera. I wanted to shoot in RAW, which is an uncompressed image file direct from the subject right to the data card on my camera. The RAW files are large, but have a lot of detail, and I wanted to see the difference between RAW and JPEG. I also played around with some other settings on the camera, as well as the new version of Apple Aperture to edit. The result was 120 shutter snaps and six shots that I edited and liked, well below my average. Maybe I'm becoming more selective.

I enjoyed Chicago immensely, it reminded me of a much bigger Boston, as city that you really want to walk around and explore. I was impressed with the number of athletes there, the running and biking trails were full of early-morning athletes braving the frigid downpour. I need to come back again.

Editing For The Future

 

A little girl in the hospital in Cange, Haiti.   An average shot that I spent some time editing, and  now think is fairly presentable. 

I've been photo-editing for the past 24 hours or so, playing with an Apples Aperture upgrade from 1.5 to 3.0.  It's a nifty piece of software that lets me do things within my editing capabilities, and while I have Adobe's Photoshop, it's just bigger and more robust that I really need. It's been exciting to walk through so many photographs, to venture backwards in time and remember people and places through some of the shots that I'm revisiting. 

Photography is doing exactly what I hoped it would do, documenting the things that I've seen and people that I've met along my path of travel.  In my past life I never took a single photograph or came home with any memorabilia; twenty years of traveling the globe and I had little to show for it other than memories and some good bar stories.  Now that I'm shooting my children and grandchildren will be able to look at some of my shots and see the same things that I did, stand where I stood, and feel the same emotions of the moment. This makes me happy.

Photogs Up Close

 One of the really good things that has come out of my experience in Haiti is that I've had the opportunity to mingle with and observe dozens of professional photojournalists.  These guys and gals go out every day and document the thousands of stories, and then come back to the hotel and sit around the bar selecting, editing, and sending their work around the world.  It's been an unbelievable opportunity and privilege to watch this process up close.

As I sit here there are several photogs looking over their day's shots on small MacBooks, and editing in Photoshop.  They're serious and pensive within the process, and once the work is fed they grab a beer and relax for the remainder of the evening.  The ever-present question is how long they should stay, when does the story run out?

Here is what I've noticed from the photog community:

• Most use Cannon cameras, normally two, one slung on each shoulder
• Photo vests are for PSDs.  Security ruined the vests for photogs.  Now its backpacks.
• They all seem to edit in Photoshop
• There is not a lot of sharing or viewing other's shots, but they will show you if asked
• Way too much smoking going on during the editing process
• NGOs pay better than magazines
• There's a difference between shooting art and news
• During the moment, hold the hammers down, try to stay in composition and focus
• All have agents they send their photos through
• Macs are the laptops of choice
• Skype gets them back home at bedtime
• The average salary is extremely hard-earned.  This life comes at a price.

Lessons Of A Rookie Photog

While I’ve been taking photos my entire life, I purchased my first serious camera about a year ago, a Nikon D200. Since that time I’ve taken thousands of shots, some have made it up on this blog, others into the Flickr community; most just sit idly on my MacBook Pro.

Here are some of the things that I’ve learned in my rookie year as an ‘enthusiastic’ photographer:

• Carry your camera with you. You can’t shoot if you don’t have it. Learn how to carry it unobtrusively in various situations so it doesn’t always have to be hanging around your neck like a tourist.

• When in doubt, shoot it. A digital shot doesn’t cost anything, so fire away.

• Try to go on photowalks where your primary purpose is to take shots of things. It makes you look at the world differently.

• Read your camera’s manual over and over again. Same for the lens and flash manuals. Know where all of the buttons and settings are and what they do.

• Learn your photo editing software. You’d be surprised with what you can do with a lousy shot and some editing skills.

• Don’t delete anything. Go back and look at your archives, there are some real gems there that you missed many months before when you were quickly picking shots to edit.

• Look at photos from other people either online or in magazines. You pick up things without even knowing it.

• Learn to be fast. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Be able to bring the lens to bare, frame, focus, shoot, and keep shooting.

• Learn some people skills. Some people don’t like thier photos taken, especially in other parts of the world. Learn to ask with a smile and a gesture towards the lens. Afterwards, show them the shots in the viewer as sort of a gesture of thanks and an acknowledgment of trust.

• Work on shooting unobtrusively. Again, slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

• Pay attention to light.

• Set you camera up ahead of time, ISO, White Balance, lens and AF settings. It saves from fumbling around with things when you should be shooting.

• Experiment with everything, and then experiment some more.

• Focus is everything. Almost everything can be fixed in post-production except poor focus.

My Kingdom For A Horse

CNN reported that a tornado touched down in downtown Atlanta the other day, within yards of the front of CNN Center, the headquarters of the cable news network. I watched the CNN footage of the aftermath of the storm and was shocked that it was absolute shit. It looked like someone emerged from the building after the storm and shot the video on their cell phone. It was all over the map, shaky and dark. I was samazed that in that huge building CNN couldn’t scrounge up a proper cameraman with a camera to shoot the video. We all had a good chuckle, especially our cameramen.

I saw this girl sitting there and she reminded me so much of Steve McCurry's famous 1984 shot of the green-eyed Afghan girl.

I got out today as the sun was setting and took some photos of the street. Kids were just getting out of school and many were walking hand-in-hand sharing ice cream from the corner store while starring at the tall gringo with the camera. As I walked through the streets I passed an organized soccer game in the new field, groups of burka-clad women walking their children, and kids racing around on beat up bicycles. It all seemed very normal; a momentary glimpse of what this country is hopefully heading towards.

All Things Are Thus

I love this photo of an old set of scales caught between the shadow and the light. It looks as if the light is pushing down on one end of the scales.

Baghdad is a wonderful place for old things; things that have been used for decades but are still functional. After the first Gulf War it became difficult to purchase many items, so the Iraqis made use of what they already had. Objects are worn with age and use, gritty from endless exposure to dust and sun. The imperfections of age are everywhere highlighting each object’s unique identity, marked by use and time. All things everywhere I like this, it’s just so stark here.

In The Store

Some photos that I took of a neighborhood shop are being used for a web piece on the Fox News site. I was asked by the correspondent to write a couple of lines about the experience of shooting the store. Here’s what I said:

"Shooting photographs in the small roadside shop was a challenge. Everything was so tight and cramped that it was difficult to capture an overall feeling of the store. The adults nervously shied away from the camera while the children leapt to be in every shot. In the rear of the store was a doorway that lead to an open air storage area filled with all sorts of interesting subjects, antique scales, a corrosion-covered air conditioner, old tools spilling out of a dented and rusted toolbox. It became a study of gritty, age-worn objects still being used because nothing else was available."

Shooting The Neighborhood

When I get time I enjoy venturing out into the neighborhood on my own little photowalks. I’m always shadowed by a couple security guards supposedly protecting my hide while I’m searching for things to shoot. The guards are fun and love to strike armed, manly poses in front of everything that I look at.

Some days I find a lot of inanimate objects and really get into shooting these, trying to somehow capture the imperfections caused by age and wear. Many, many things here in the neighborhood are old and well worn, and it’s always a challenge to portray the feeling that the Japanese call wabi sabi.

Other days there are plenty of living subjects, but I’m not that good with people. I never have been. I end up getting a lot of stiff, smiling poses. I need to talk to the media cameramen and ask them how they get their impromptu, natural shots. I guess like anything else, practice.

Photo Essay

I was honored to see that Fox News used some of my photographs in a photo essay to support of a story by correspondent David Mac Dougall.

I feel very much out of my league having my work up on a major media outlet site. In part, it causes me to wrestle with my ego, which is always a good exercise.

Lunch With The Neighbors

Young Iraqi girl shying aware from the camera

We had lunch with an Iraqi family yesterday as part of a media report profiling the lives of average Iraqis. The family was hired as caretakers for a new and very palatial home not far from the Green Zone. The father, mother and four children survive on $100 a month while living in and looking after the home.

The visit was intriguing, and the correspondent got an opportunity to ask some very personal questions of the family. What struck me the most was that the father had watched General Patraeus’ testimony to the U.S. House on TV, and had some very informed opinions as to what he had seen.

The four children were great. The oldest daughter was not very keen on having her photo taken so I had to be a little sneaky. The two you boys couldn’t get enough of the cameras and begged to have their pictures taken at every opportunity.

Photowalk

A crippled father sits next to his daughter outside their villa. There is a distance between them.

I ventured outside the secure villa that we stay in and went for a short photowalk down the street. Flanked by two armed guards I got a chance to take some photographs of our neighborhood. People were friendly albeit curious. The guards were less than enthused about having to escort me down the street and back, but hey, I’m their boss.
Baghdad, like many ancient cities, is divided into neighborhoods, and within these are the ancestral homes of the families that make up the city. A person is known now and forever by the neighborhood that he or she grew up in; it defines them, empowers them, and even limits them.

Viagra For Jetlag?

I took a decent nap today trying to fend off the jetlag from yesterday’s trip. I colleague told me that if you take a Viagra tablet when traveling west to east it will lessen the severity of the jetlag. I’m not sure what the science is behind that theory, but I opted not to test it out.

I went for a walk in downtown Amman this afternoon and took some photos, and put about nine of them up on Flickr. Again, I was a little self-conscious with a camera, but I’m slowly learning some photography social skills.

One of the street vendors stuck a shemagh on my head and had one of his buddies take my camera and grab a photo of us together. I was imagining the would-be photographer making a break for it with my Nikon, and me chasing him through the streets, red and white shemagh flapping in the wind.

No Pictures Here

Like many places in today’s worlds, taking pictures in Amman is not the easiest thing to do. People are suspicious of anyone with a camera. The average Jordanian is more accustomed to seeing assault rifles than he is a telephoto lens, and any westerner waiving one around is bound to attract unwanted attention. To be fair, I am staying at a hotel that was bombed a little over a year ago, so I can see why people might be more than a little security conscious.

Photographers continue to be easy targets for amateur security wonks. Anyone taking a photo of a building or a bridge must be a plotting terrorist, why else would they do it? I guess if I threw on a pair of plaid Bermuda shorts, knee-high socks, and hung a point-and-shoot around my neck that I would be better off.

Law of Averages

I went to the Atlanta Zoo this morning with my three-year-old son. As it’s been two days since I've pressed a shutter release so I was excited to finally take some pictures.

Here’s how it broke down. I ended up taking 107 shots over 90 minutes. I thought this was a good number given that I had one eye in the viewfinder and the other on my son. Sometimes the two lined up, other times, not.

I imported all 107 into Aperture and began to stack and rate them. Out of the bunch, I ended up picking 12 of them for cropping and editing.

From the 12, I uploaded one to my Flickr account, and none made it up to the Flickr’s Utata group. I have pretty high standards for what I put up there.