SGirimont Photography Blog: The Stories Behind the Images

I’ve been specifically requested by the leader of the workshop I was attending in Arizona to not mention the name of this canyon, as he is trying to keep it from being as overwhelmed with visitors as Upper and Lower Antelope Canyons have become. I will say, however, that this picture was made on the rim of another slot canyon not far from Page and requires a hiking permit from the Navajo Nation to get to.

The rim of this canyon is an interesting study in various shapes and textures of sandstone. This particular image was made with a Canon 5D using a 70-200mm lens at 200mm to utilize the telephoto compression that such a lens produces. This “squishes” the foreground and background together to make it seem as if what is actually in the distance is right up on top of the foreground, thereby giving this image a layered effect of the many different directions of the lines within the sandstone.

This image was taken just after sunset, which brings out the warm colors of the sandstone. Just a few minutes earlier and the texture and colors of these rocks had looked completely different; much whiter with greater contrast.

The third image in my Page, Arizona series is another image taken at Horseshoe Bend, but from a different perspective. I have no idea what kind of bush or tree this is growing out of the rock near the edge of the canyon, but when I realized the rising sun was about to cast a beam along the right edge of the white spine-like branches, I quickly put the camera and tripod in position to record the event.

This kind of image is known as a “near-far” composition. Find an interesting scene with an object in the foreground and fill the width of the camera frame with the object, letting the background and compositional “weight” of the foreground object draw the viewer’s eye to it. In this scene, the area of greatest contrast, the bright reflection of the sun-lit rocks in the river in the background, initially draws the eye of the viewer. The s-bend of the river and bottom-heavy composition of the image then draws the eye down the image to the tree. I purposely left some rock to the right and left of the tree to prevent the branches from “breaking” the frame and drawing the viewer’s eye out of the image. Hopefully I’ve succeeded.

As with last week’s Horseshoe Bend image, this one is also a composite of four exposures to have detail from the bright sky all the way into the shadows of the canyon.

While shooting the exposures for the above image, I got to really like the contrast of the colors around that island in the river. The golds of the reflected light from the rocks and the deep blues of the sky’s reflection really attracted me. With my Canon 5D with the 16-35 lens on the tripod to photograph the tree, I grabbed my 40D with a 70-200 lens to capture a detail of the river scene. This image was made using a single exposure since I was hand-holding the camera and lens (which makes accurately stacking multiple exposures very difficult).

It may, or may not, surprise you to hear that Wedding Photography and Sports Photography are very similar. And I’m not just talking about those weddings where the bride or groom go running down the aisle, vault over the ushers who are trying to stop them and set new world records in the 100-yard-dash to their car. (Note: I’ve never witnessed one of these, but I’ve heard the stories).

No, I’m talking about how the photographer must be able to predict where the best place to capture the action will be; calculating angles and light and timing the click of the shutter to capture the peak action. Cameras that can fire 10 frames per second should not be relied upon to capture the peak action; the “spray and pray” method of photography is less preferable than good predictive skills and timing. And, of course, luck has a little to do with it too, but, as they say, luck favors the prepared.

Back when I co-owned a mountain bike race photography business called BoilingPoint Photography, my preferred method of shooting the fast action of the racers wasn’t with a long lens and fast shutter speed. No, my preferred method of shooting was with a very wide-angle lens, forcing me to be right at the side of the trails, and slow shutter speeds coupled with flash. The flash acts to freeze the motion of the rider, while the slow shutter speed and movement of the camera, served to put a motion blur on the background.

This happens to also be how I like to photograph much of the reception when shooting a wedding.

In the first image above, I am crouched low at the side of the trail at a spot I’ve chosen because I knew the slight right turn on the downhill slope just past me would give me a nice angle as the rider turned the front wheel. Using a 17mm lens, I am only a few inches away from the riders as they go past at ridiculous speeds. Using a shutter speed of about 1/20th of a second gave me a nice motion blur on the background as I moved the camera (panning) to follow the rider as he went past. With the flash firing at the end of the exposure (rear-curtain sync flash), the rider was frozen by the flash as it fired, but the background, being so much further away, is not.

In the second image of a Groom dancing with his niece, the same techniques were used, except the camera was not moved during the exposure. Again, a shutter speed of about 1/20th of a second was used as the girl was twirling around. I timed my exposure for when the girl’s face was going to be toward the camera, but luck played it’s role from the fact that she just happened to be looking right into the lens when the flash fired, freezing the action at just the perfect moment. The slow shutter speed also helped balance the ambient light with the flash, thereby avoiding the all-too-familiar look of a dark background and an over-exposed subject that just screams “THIS PERSON USED A FLASH!!!!” I much prefer this look, don’t you?