Sept 2014
I had just purchased the Nikon D610 a few days before. I guess I was carrying two camera bodies. My last shoot was the West Indian day parade. Nice. Colorful. Naked women – not quite – galore. It was a show! No selfie today. I was all about the pageantry and spectacle. Photo op!
This is the last shoot – mostly – with my trusty Nikon D200. Seven years. Not bad service for a digital camera. I was not compelled by changes in camera technology till then.
One click. One before and one after… it’s but a moment. Seconds. Five seconds between three shots. I am seeking the best shot. I will edit later. For now, shoot early and shoot often. Does it work? Are they all worthy? Edit? Does it mean to discard bad shots? Does it matter? Hard drive memory is pretty much infinite. But cluttered! Discard and it’s easier to find good images later. Did you mistakenly discard an image that on the “next look” was one that should have been kept? Go ahead make yourself crazy. Meanwhile, I shoot early and often and keep all. There is less anxiety. Edit? I rate my images with stars and look at the “2’s” and upward.
Festivals. They are quintessential opportunities for candid photography. Everyone is snapping pictures. Shoot away. No one even glances in the direction of your camera. Weirdness abounds. If you dress that way…. Be sure to wear clean underwear.
The pandemic is still amongst us. It’s early for Halloween. Colleen greeted the flower with a name? It looks like a hibiscus to me. But I am probably wrong. We were happy to see it.
The attitude used to be: “I’ll fix it later in Photoshop.” No, it is wrong to be lazy. Do the work when you take the pic. Compose, focus, edit. I have become reticent to crop or adjust in post process editing. Otherwise, out of the “box” works for me.
It works like this. I have edited and criticized my own work often in the past. The admonishments play gently cajoling me to zoom closer or toe compose better. Watch the background distractions. Sometimes you just can’t get a better shot? I know this. I just keep trying.
Zoom a little more. A zoom lens is a good thing. There are purists. They frown upon anyone using naught but a prime lens. ? that would be a lens with only a single focal length. Ah! I have bias toward iPhone. Well, there are controversies…. I learned long ago that I zoom to compose my shots and give them more emphasis on the subject I am photographing. And in the course of editing I discovered that I cropped many of my photos. So, why not crop by zooming ahead of time? And so I do. I have a 23-200 and an 80-400 zoom lens. I tend to sit at 200 and 400mm for much of the time. ?? it just works out that way. There is no particular reason.
In this instance I chose a random image from the Indian powwow. The need to zoom is derived from the distracting background and my lack of mobility. I was not lazy. It’s just not polite to be walking in front of the audience and blocking someone’s view. I was not a credentialed photographer for the event.
Specifically, zooming closer and eliminating the tents and distracting people in the background would have helped. I was at 110mm out of 400mm. Depth of field did blur the background somewhat. Exposure was good. Focus was good. Technically this image was sound. But I could have done better.
Or, wait for your subject to get closer. Same 110mm zoom, but now the background is less distracting. Better? Both images are sound. There is a choice. I’d go with the second image.
PhotoCritical 