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Michael Clark Newsletter
From his blog: Michael Clark is an internationally published outdoor photographer specializing in adventure sports, travel, and landscape photography. His editorial and corporate clients include National Geographic, Sports Illustrated, Outside, Men's Journal, Outdoor Photographer, Digital Photo Pro, Climbing, Nike, Nikon, Adobe, Patagonia, Pfizer and DuPont to name just a few. Michael has just published his awesome, 21-page Spring 2008 Newsletter in PDF form. It packs some great photography and great writing. Check out the back issues too.
Joe McNally video
Google recently invited Joe McNally to give a talk on their corporate campus and the whole talk (over an hour long) is on YouTube for FREE! Joe is an incredible speaker who has seen and photographed an amazing variety of things over a career of 30+ years. It's funny, inspiring, and worth your time. Go watch it.
Rick Steves in Iran
Europe Through the Back Door expert traveler Rick Steves is in Iran for 10 days filming a TV show. Rick is an incredible travel writer,and I always read his books before traveling to Europe and take them as guidebooks as well. He was recently asked by the Washington State chapter of the United Nations Association to help build understanding between Iran and the US. I highly recommend reading this blog about his travels in Iran. It's a great read, and he's really finding the Iranian people warm and gracious. I can't say I'm surprised. If ever there are menacing things being said about another country and its people it is typically coming from the U.S. government or being repeated verbatim by the American media. (And for my international blog readers, I am an American.) Sadly, most of my fellow Americans, the majority of which never travel outside their own country (with the exception of Caribbean cruise ships), never know any different. They hate whomever they're told to hate as being responsible for all their problems, or any problems they may yet to have experienced, instead of seeking out the truth themselves. Every time I hear our government war rallying about Iran building nuclear weapons it makes me cringe. Oil production in Iran has already peaked and has been declining steadily. Just last year their government started gas rationing. However, you will never hear the U.S. government mention any of those facts. Iran is smart for wanting to build nuclear power plants. It is America who hasn't seen the light concerning peak oil yet. ( Please read this if you don't know what peak oil is.) If a side-effect of nuclear power plants is material sufficient for building a nuclear bomb; well, I can't blame them for that either. After all, America voted George Bush into office twice! If I was a world leader I would want some protection from the U.S. government too. To all of my blog readers, and especially incompetent American politicians, please read Rick Steves blog. Labels: Iran, Rick Steves, travel
Book Review: The Photographer's Guide to the Studio by Roger Hicks and Frances Schultz
 Pass on it I purchased this as a bargain bin book and was simply hoping to get a few ideas from it. From that perspective, I did get a still-life idea or two that I'll work on in the future. That is all I got from it however. I can't give the book high marks as a studio tutorial because frankly it is not very good. The text is introductory and gives a broad overview of studio lighting, posing, and composition but is nothing spectacular. The images in the book fall way short. Many of them were almost certainly shot in the 1970s or early 80s, yet the book is copyrighted in 2002. Many of the pictures are very, very HORRID. It is hard to take anything the authors say very seriously when the pictures are so bad. The book was written for film-based cameras, lenses, and accessories instead of digital; however, I expected as much and was hoping to pick up tips on lighting equipment irrespective of medium. Unfortunately, The Photographer's Guide to the Studio is not much of a guide to anything of any detail. Buy it on Amazon (or not)
Photography Videos
David Hobby of The Strobist blog posted a great video this week of Joe McNally shooting a model in the desert with 7 wireless SB-800 flash units. The hi-res version is 68 megabytes, but it's worth the wait. Also, while this is old news (in Internet time), Adobe recently launched its Adobe TV site with tons of great, FREE videos for designers, photographers, video heads, and software developers. So turn off the legacy TV and watch Adobe instead. Also, if you are interested in studio lighting there is a GREAT eight-part video series on YouTube by UK photographer Ken Henderson. It's really informative and entertaining as well. Ken is a great teacher.
More from Paris
I'm almost done editing pictures from my last shoot in Paris. Just a few more to go. Here are a few selects from the last batch of images. The historic square of Place de la Concorde, with its 3,200-year-old obelisk from Egypt, is where all those famous people that you faintly remember from history class were hung (plus nearly 2,800 who were not famous). Look closely at the sidewalk and you can still see the blood. The Champs Elysees leads the way to the Arc de Triomphe.  Street signs in Paris are just cool:  The best time to take night shots is after sunset but before the sky goes totally black. Ideally, you want some dark blue left to the sky, and it will become even bluer with a long exposure on a tripod. However, after standing in line for two hours at the Eiffel Tower you take what you can get. Meaning, a totally black sky. There are three levels to the Eiffel Tower and this shot was taken from the second level. The top of the Eiffel gives you the same view as Google Earth. Even at the second level the cold, cold, cold wind was so bad that it was almost impossible to get a tack sharp shot. Here I used a very fast Nikon 50mm f/1.4 lens, hand-held, with an exposure of 1/10 sec at f/4.5 with an ISO of 800. I probably should have used a wider f-stop and slightly lower ISO, but I didn't. I did, however, take a ton of pictures just hoping some would be sharp. Even for the pros, in a case like this that is about all you can do. Keep your feet planted in a good "human tripod" formation, elbows tucked in, support the camera and lens well, press the viewfinder tightly to your eye, and roll the shutter after exhaling...  A 50mm f/1.4 is great for shooting in museums and cathedrals as well. This next pic of the inside of the Louvre Museum (Bronze statue Mars assis by Luigi Valadier, 1726-1785, in the Grande Galerie) wasn't taken with the 1.4 but with its short lens, equally-inconspicuous cousin, the Nikon 24mm f/2.8. After you get the "right" lens on the camera, it always helps to pray profusely that someone with a red jacket will walk into the frame to give it a little "pop":  I'll close with a black and white shot of the Louvre looking up through the glass pyramid: 
New Website for National Geographic Assignment
National Geographic Assingnment just launched a redesigned website. It looks great. Check it out.
Jesus Christ
No, I'm not using the Lord's name in vane. Literally, it's Jesus Christ:  More specifically, it's a picture montage of the Christ of the Ozarks statue in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. (Yes, I know the montage is a bit cheesy, but I needed to practice my outdoor portraiture and he stood really still.) Annie Leibovitz may get to photograph Queen Elizabeth II, but has she photographed Jesus lately? I don't think so. At least I didn't ask Jesus to take his crown off like Annie asked the Queen. What is this? Is it the Tree of Life in the same blog post? (Minus the apples and snakes and stuff?) Or maybe it's just a Oak tree with Spring foliage shot from above?  How did I get this shot? It helps to have a Friend in Jesus.
The Musée du Louvre
I don't know of anything to even begin to compare it to. It and the size of the collection within it are impressive beyond belief. The Musée du Louvre's is by far the most intimidating place I have ever been, but I can't wait to go back and get lost within it once again.  Labels: black and white photography, Louvre, Paris
National Geographic Traveler
Back in January a photo editor from National Geographic Adventure contacted me and inquired about some mountain biking and rafting pictures of the Ouachita Mountains in my backyard here in Arkansas, so I pointed him to what I had available. I never heard back from him, but a month later the top image that I had directed him to was licensed through one of the agencies that I am with. The coincidence peaked my interest, however, when a photographer makes a sale through an agency you don't know who the client is because the agencies don't want photographers to bypass them and market directly to their clients. At best, you only know generic information about the usage. In this case, I knew it was for either a retail book, magazine, or newspaper; one within the travel sub-industry; licensed to all English-speaking territories; and with a print run up to 750,000 (pretty large). It sounded very coincidental. I am very blessed that my images are licensed quite often, but it is still rare that I ever know the specific publications or advertisements unless the sale is handled directly from my office and not through an agency. So I began checking the magazine rack nearly every time I went to the grocery store! And I made a special trip or two to Barnes & Noble as well. The photo editor had listed NG Adventure in his email, but I suspected that stories frequently got moved between NG Adventure and NG Traveler. Each month I attempted to find and check both, and even some of the other national outdoor adventure magazines. In retrospect, I remember I had trouble finding NG Traveler though. However, I knew that if it appeared in a magazine it would be a few of months from the date of sale before that issue was printed. I kept my eyes open for it, but eventually I had given up hope of ever finding it in print. Which brings us to this past weekend. I was visiting my family in Northeast Arkansas, and Saturday afternoon we went to a couple of nearby flea markets. Photographers love flea markets! I won't go into details, but I have purchased something at one of these flea markets before which has netted me several images and image sales. But that's a story for another time. I had also purchased a Jay Maisel photo book in great condition at one of them before. At one of the tables I ran across a stack of magazines. Two of them were issues of National Geographic Traveler, the April 2008 and June/July 2008 issues. Both were in great shape, in-date no less, and a steal for only 25 cents each. Did I think about my image being in one of them? Absolutely, but after thumbing through them quickly in the store I didn't see it. It was only when we got back home that I noticed the April issue had "Hot Springs Nat'l Park" on top of the magazine. Sure enough! There it was! On page 50 with an image credit in minuscule type in the margin. Needly to say, I was quite excited! Below is the image that ran in the magazine. This particular photo trip has proved quite productive. Another image of a vista of the Ouachita Mountains, taken only a few minutes earlier and a few meters away, was also licensed recently for a different publication. I think the magazine was well-worth 25 cents! 
Baby shots
The other night I made some pictures of a family member's baby. My newlywed wife and I were left alone with the cute girl for about 45 minutes, and it was a rather scary experience for both of us! :-) My advice on shooting babies? Hold the shutter down on rapid fire mode and gun through shots like there's no tomorrow! (Or until your batteries are dead.)  
Waterfalls in the Ozark National Forest of Arkansas
Here are some waterfalls I photographed a few weeks ago. The light wasn't best for waterfall photography. Overcast days are ideal because they minimize the contrast of light shining through the trees. But... after you've driven a couple of hours to reach your destination and hiked down a very muddy trail for 20 minutes, you take what you can get. When I arrived the trees had not budded out as much as I expected. Actually, not at all in most places, like in the shot below. This shot is actually quite horrible in color, but in black and white it works fairly well. I wouldn't call it spectacular, but it's decent.  Whenever you are doing waterfall photography it's essential to use a tripod in order to get a nice blur to the water and create that smooth, flowing effect. The shot below was a half-second exposure but the wind joined the party and created a nice abstract effect to the leaves. I doubt this image will ever be published anywhere but here (it's too wild and crazy for most publications), but I've learned over the years that you can never tell which pictures editors will pick. I think it's neat though.  This is a more traditional waterfall shot. All of these falls are unnamed as far as I know. I also took a shot like the one below where I put myself in the picture wearing a bright shirt. This makes the work I put into framing the shot (and hiking down and back up a very STEEP hill) pay off twice. Some publishers will want a person in the shot as a "get out and have an adventure pic" and some will need a straight nature/wilderness shot.  Labels: Arkansas, nature, photography, waterfalls
Ozarks Wildflower
Spring has sprung in the Ozarks Mountains of Arkansas.  Labels: Arkansas, flower, Ozarks, photography, wildflower
How to take a interesting photograph - Example 1
- Find someone who sews a lot.
- Ask him or her for a jar of buttons.
- Pour them on the floor.
- Take a picture.
That is literally all I did here, and in my case I just asked my mom!  But if only they were real gold!
Dumpster Diving
OK, I admit it. I like to go dumpster diving. I prefer to keep my olfactory factory aroma-free though. So, I use Amazon.com instead. Simply by searching through all of their photography books with the search results ordered by Low Price to High you can find all sorts of goodies. I often buy these used as all the books from third-party resellers that I've purchased on Amazon have been in very decent to excellent shape. There are pages and pages of books for only $.01 with $4 shipping in the U.S. I picked up Great Smoky Mountain Impressions today for only $0.01, because I plan to go back to the Smokies soon. If I can learn possible shooting locations and subjects from this book, then great, but if it turns out to be only inspirational then that's fine too. I always study a LOT of location-specific work by other photographers before visiting a location. NOT to copy their work, but to build a mental database of possibilities and things to look for. Over and over again I pick up on locations and things to see that are not listed in any of the guidebooks and I usually read all of those too, thanks to the library! Jay Maisel is one of the greatest photographers of our time. I bought his book, ON ASSIGNMENT (Photographers at Work), for only $1.15. Published in 1990, it may not explain how the next version of Photoshop will solve all of my digital workflow problems, but I'm willing to bet I'll learn a lot from it anyway. I also picked up a Klik: Showcase Photography annual (I don't think these are published anymore.) for only $0.06, and a very promising book called Photographing In The Studio: Tools and Techniques for Creative Expression by Gary Kolb for only $2.59. It has two 5-star reviews and one reviewer said it is the "best studio lighting textbook I have ever found". The book was published in 1993 but that review was written in 2005, so maybe it still has some secrets to share. I've created a whole wish list of books like this on Amazon to share with my family members as a birthday and Christmas gift list. You should do the same. There's plenty of great stuff out there to find! If you're just starting out in photography, don't overlook your local library either. When I was an amateur photographer I read through pretty much everything the library had, dozens and dozens of tutorial and picture books. It's an important starting place!
The Eiffel Tower in Black and White
There are photographers in the world who think the Eiffel Tower is overdone and passé. I feel sorry for those people. 
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