When It Comes to Covers - You Never Know

It seems silly to have to say that we always submit our best work for show juries or publications, but I am often surprised by which images end up getting selected, especially when it comes to print. I find myself often saying, to myself, "You really want that one?". It actually has much more to do with what wasn't selected than what was, as editors pass over what I think is my best stuff. As I've struggled to push ego out of the way, I've come to appreciate, that editors have many more considerations beyond pure "art". They have to decide whether the image tells the desired story, whether it fits into the available space and, in the case of a cover photo, whether the image can survive having text splashed all over it. Recently this last point was brought home to me once again.

 

A couple of weeks ago I was excited to learn that New Hampshire To Do Magazine had selected one of my photographs for the cover of their March 2011 issue. They had chosen an images from the Stonewall Farm's Sap Gathering Contest in Keene, NH. Each year folks from throughout the Northeast gather with their horse teams to celebrate traditional maple sugaring techniques and I get the chance to temporarily escape from the efficient but ugly tubes that are invading our forests. Over the last three years I've been able to capture some nice images of the whole process and a couple of years ago one of these photos actually took first place in the NH Tourism Bureau's State Photography Contest. You can check out some of these pictures in my Sap Gathering Set on Flickr (http://bit.ly/eSRmH5) or on my web site (partridgebrookreflections.com).

 

The editors at NH To Do had access to all of my web images and I was surprised when they chose one that I have always found a bit disappointing. I had set up to capture a single bucket in the foreground with the sled approaching. With my camera fixed on a tripod, I first took an image focused on the bucket and then was able to composite this foreground image with the images focused on the sleds as they came by. The horses were moving much too fast to capture this extreme depth of field in a single exposure without unacceptably long shutter speeds and high ISO. In the selected image I felt that I had hit the shutter a second too late as the horses were passing. The composition would have been much stronger if the team was in a more balanced position in the upper right quadrant of the frame rather than both team and bucket on the left side. But, on reflection, I suspect that it was this imbalance that made this image attractive for the cover. All that open space on the right provided room for the required text and there was enough headroom in the image to provide space for the title at the top. It probably also helped that they could flip the image horizontally without the number on the bib giving them away.

I tend to brutally crop and recrop my images to focus on a few simple components. I am always looking to remove elements on the periphery that distract from the story. The point here is that when it comes to covers you never know what might work. Often it is the image with extra head room and areas of open space that will win the prize. This is one reason I usually delay cropping until fairly late in the editing process and then I always save an uncropped copy. You just never know.

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The Plunge & Why I Will Never be a Wedding Photographer

Last Sunday I spent the day photographing Cheshire Medical Center’s "Frozen Sections" as they participated in the 12^th annual New Hampshire Penguin Plunge at Hampton Beach, NH. This year over 700 volunteers raised money for the privilege of rushing insanely into the frigid Atlantic Ocean at Hampton Beach. The Plunge is a great event raising money to support the Special Olympics and our group from Keene NH has been a leader in that effort. This Sunday, for the fourth straight year, the "Frozen Sections" won the "Super Flock Award" as the group that raised the most money. In total, this year’s plunge brought in over $670,000.

Although at heart I am a landscape photographer I do enjoy recording the human drama that is seen when hundreds of otherwise normal people rush willingly into an environment incompatible with life. It is great to see their excitement as they sprint towards the frozen surf, and even more fun to see the mixture of triumph and numbed shock as they straggle back up the beach after the plunge. I have realized for a long time that I am fascinated with the human face and I enjoy working to bring out the character and individuality of each person. And that is the problem.

As was true last year I came back from the plunge with just a couple hundred images and as much as I tell myself that I am going to be brutally efficient with editing, I find that I unavoidably slip into "landscape mode" and want to fine tune each frame. I start with a quick crop, color and brightness adjustment, but then I start using masks to highlight the important subjects and cloning to deal with facial glare. Of course I occasionally have to move a head from one image to another to replace a squinting scowl with a more pleasing expression. Two minutes becomes 15 and I’m dead in the water. In two nights I have produced 45 finished images and probably have another one or two nights to go.

The fact is I love doing this kind of work especially when I’m successful at keeping the manipulations effective and transparent, but I can’t imagine how I would survive trying to edit a couple of thousand wedding photos.

This sort of event photography is not precisely the same as weddings. There are much fewer "Set Piece" shots and lighting can be more difficult to precisely control. On the other hand there are no brides to deal with in non-wedding events.

 Next year I will undoubtably return to help document what these crazy people do to support the wonderful folks in the Special Olymics.  It has the magnetic fascination of a car wreck but with a much better outcome. I will try again to do a better job with lighting.  I especially will, finally, figure out how to use my flash. I will discover the ideal places to stand to get the best angles without being trampled by crazed plungers and I will use more efficient batch processing to cut my editing time to something less than four days. But my conclusion will inevitably be the same ... NO WEDDINGS!

　

The Special Olympics State Winter Games are coming up in early March at Waterville Valley.

For more information on Special Olympics and the Penguin Plunge, visit sonh.org.

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I Do Windows ... Is That Wrong

Whenever I can't decide where to go shooting I know I can't go wrong by heading south on Route 124 from Keene NH. I don't believe there is a stretch of road in the Monadnock Region that can match the concentration of classic New England scenes along the 12 miles from Marlborough to Jaffrey. Mt. Monadnock's dramatic profile is the major attraction, but one of my favorite stops is the old Jaffrey Center with its quintessential colonial New England meeting house. It is an amazing building with an amazing story. The Jaffrey Meetinghouse was raised on June 17, 1775, the day of the Battle of Bunker Hill. It was recorded that the workers could hear the distant canon fire from Charlestown over 60 miles away.

I have captured the meetinghouse from all angles and in all seasons. On this day I was concentrating on framing the pristine white building with the surrounding trees. As I came around to the front I was horrified to discover that the three windows along the spire had been removed and replaced with black wood panels. I assume that this is part of necessary renovations, but they COULD have checked with me first! Nothing to do but take the shots. The view looking up the road to the front provides nice framing and had the added advantage of being relatively straight on making adjustments in post a little easier.

Back at home I had to decide what to do with this image. To me there was little choice. The black panels clearly did not reflect the essence of this historic structure and since my goal was not to faithfully record the progress of the renovation, I had to move some windows. This is where purist are allowed to gasp ..... OK moving on. Happily the front of the building is full of excellent candidates for copying. I elected to select the window panes to a new layer rather than cloning since this allows the necessary rotation and scaling to make the proper fit. It wasn't too complicated. Just took a tittle time. The small features, such as getting the snow on the sill to remain in front of the glass, were the most painstaking. I believe that the result represents what you see when the meetnghouse is in its glory. The windows are identical to those that were there originally and my window replacement service is A LOT cheaper.


I hope few are offended, but this is just one of the miracles of digital photography. Ansel Adams once commented on criticism he received for spotting out graffiti that had polluted the rocks on one of his classic images; "I am not enough of a purist to perpetuate the scar and thereby destroy - for me, least - the extraordinary beauty and perfection of the scene". If I am criticized I can only respond, "Ansel made me do it".

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Dumb Luck and Foreshortening

Yesterday, after some errands in Keene NH, I decided to loop my way home through Gilsum, Alstead and Walpole to take advantage of the late afternoon light. On the way I stopped at the Filter Connection in Gilsum to pick up some sensor cleaning solution. A few years ago I was surprised to discover that a great on-line filter reseller was actually just down the road. I have since become friends with the owner and staff, but they were initially surprised when I informed them that I would be dropping by to pick up my order. Their building is remarkably unimpressive, but their stock, prices and knowledgeable support are first rate. Most importantly, they also welcome my dog Nellie to come in and play with the office canines. Check them out at 2filter.com and yes, the Lamas belong to the owner.

As I wandered along, the evening light was warm and clear, but I didn't find much that I found exciting to photograph. I had just about given up, but sometimes you just have to accept dumb luck. On the way home from Walpole, I thought I would check out how the sunset light was playing on the hilltop of Alyson's Orchard. Looking up I was floored by the nearly full moon positioned perfectly over the great Oak at the top of the hill. If anyone asks, I had checked the tables and planned my arrival for this convergence. I started at the bottom using my 400mm to magnify the moons appearance over the tree. Then I work my way up the hill. Each switchback provided different angles to exploit and also gave me a nice example of the phenomena of foreshortening with a long lens.

Foreshortening refers to the apparent enlargement of distant objects compared to the foreground when telephoto lens are used. It is argued that this is actually just an optical illusion and it is true that when taken from the same location images recorded with long and wide angle lens have the same perspective. When the wide angle image is enlarged to match the telephoto they appear identical with exception of the narrower depth of field with the telephoto. The power of foreshortening comes when you move. As can be seen in these two images, when I was further away from the subjects using a longer focal length the moon appeared much larger in relation to the tree. The upper image was taken from the bottom of the hill at 235mm, the lower was closer and at 160mm. I frequently back up to increase the size of background elements in a composition. The important thing is to avoid backing into the lake or off the cliff. So a day that hadn't been working out well ended up yielding a nice photo opportunity and a couple of images that I suspect will find their way into a talk sometime.

Dumb luck rules!

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Winter Plan of Attack

I often think I have a great ideas for blog posts but invariably get discouraged by the sense that I have too much to say to keep it interesting. Eventually I get frustrated and wander off to do the never finished work of editing my images. So, lets see if I can hold myself to one simple point.

A week ago I was working on photographing this classic high pasture fence at Roads End Farm in Chesterfield NH. I have shot this fence before, but never in the winter and it reminded me of a simple rule about approaching photography in the snow; you should always plan your path of attack before beginning to shoot. In the summer I was able to roam all over this hill experimenting with different angles, but in the snow each "roam" places irreversible tracks that may scar other angles of view. Before I start tromping I try to remember to think through all the possible angles that I may want to capture. I then start shooting from the farthest locations and work my way closer only after I feel I have exhausted the more distant opportunities. At times I suspect I appear rather ridiculous as I take long circuitous routes around a scene to avoid contaminating the view. I am often tempted to run right in close to catch what looks to be the best angles, but untrampled snow is a precious resource for photography and should be treated with care. It is true that homogeneous appearing snow can be one of the simplest candidates for cloning out imperfections, but avoiding the problem saves a lot of time.

Of course, as can be seen, after I'm done with a location it is unavoidably ruined for all other photographers coming by - but, hey, they should have been up earlier!

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Early Spring

One of the most spectacular and fleeting signs of spring in the Monadnock region is the explosion of color which engulfs Keene’s Central Square as the flowering trees burst into bloom. Every year I keep my eye on the square trying to catch the day or two of the maximum display. I am aided by reviewing my images from previous years which tell me that peak usually hits about the first week in May. This year all bets were off. Whether it was because of the unusually warm and wet March weather or due to the effects of global warming, I was surprised to find the trees already just a bit past peak when I came by to check this Monday. This was at least two weeks early. I was able to catch a only few images during short burst of sunlight, but I feel lucky that for some reason I came by to check the square. It would have been very easy to miss the show completely this year. It is just another demonstration of how you can never take New England weather for granted.

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Crowd Control

This past weekend we loaded up a rental truck and headed down to Washington DC. My daughter Abigail just got a job as a policy analyst for a Washington DC agency dealing with social policy for low income people, and we were helping her move her stuff out of our barn and into a house in Columbia Heights. As usual my daughter chose the bedroom on the 3rd floor so much of our time was spent laboring the bed, dresser and more up the narrow stair cases. On Monday, after visiting Abby's office in the city, we finally got a brief chance to get down to see the Cherry Blossoms. It was about 4 or 5 days past peak, but still beautiful. Sadly we only had about one hour before we had to to catch a train back to New Hampshire, but I've included a few pictures on my flickr site : http://www.flickr.com/photos/27036710@N05/



Whenever I travel to the city I am reminded of the annoying fact that crowds of people tend to gather around famous and beautiful sites. This is especially true during Washington's famous Cherry Blossom Festival. Even though the flowers were begining to fade and fall, It was hard to catch a moment when there were not hordes of people in every scene. This view of the Washington Monument was one example. I loved how the single vivid tree was framed by the curving walk-way, drawing the eye up the monument. At first there was just one persisent photographer in the scene capturing the detail of the blossoms. I stuck it out for about five minutes waiting for him to move on and was finally rewarded by the arrival of a whole family of peepers. With my wife becoming increasingly frustrated, I finally decided to give up, and instead took several images with people moving around the scene. Even though the shots were hand-held I was able to register a couple of the images closely enough to allow masking out of nearly all the tourists. One additional thing to remember when doing this kind of editing is that it is important to remove the shaddows cast by the people you have deleted. With just a little minor cloning I ended up with the final, unnaturally prestine, image. It took a little work, but there is something perversely satisfying about "eliminating" people in this nonviolent way.

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