Showing posts with label Photographic Style. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Photographic Style. Show all posts

Monday 18 January 2021

On Home Territory

So, what's your photographic home territory? I kind of want mine to be the high mountains, but it turns out that I really have to work at that. Where do you find yourself shooting instinctively, not having to think about compositions? Where is photography second nature for you, where the shots throw themselves at your feet? It may simply be that it's I've spent more time here over the last 10 months, but I'm really finding that my local fields and woodlands are where it's at for me. And the Dolomites perhaps. I don't have to think about it there either.

Cedar Rushes || Olympus 21 mm, f/8, 1/40 s, ISO 200 

This afternoon I went for a walk between the local villages. There's a triangle between Kaltenberg where I live and the neighbouring two villages - Hausen and Walleshausen. There's a small mixed woods, fields and many copses and spinneys. I've walked through this area a couple of times in recent days, once on Friday in the hoarfrost and again today in fresh snow. Yesterday I was in the Allgäu, our favourite local mountain range, particularly during lockdown as it's in Germany and we don't have to cross to Austria. I'd gone cross-country skiing with my wife. Granted the light conditions were quite tricky - blue skies and a real contrast between light and shadow, but almost every shot was a challenge and editing was a chore rather than a breeze. Even - or even especially - my favourite bridge down at Bad Hindelang was proving a royal pain in the @rse. I had to shoot about 5 shots at various EV settings to accommodate everything from the sunny high slopes to the dark waters of the Ostrach river.

A Hoary Afternoon

Even though it was just after lunch, because it was cold and because the fog had persisted until late into the morning, there was still some hoarfrost on the trees around the village. As soon as the sun touched the trees, however, it fell off. In this first photo of a birch twig, you can see what look like snow falling in the background. It's actually hoarfrost falling off the tree.

Frosty Birch || Olympus 100 mm, f/8, 1/400 s, ISO 200

These thistles caught our eye as we walked along the local hedgerows. Hoarfrost had formed on the spines and then melted again as the sun fell on them.

Hoary Thistle || Olympus 100 mm, f/8, 1/250 s, ISO 200

Similarly, the frost had formed on these thistles too.

Frosty Thistles || Olympus 100 mm, f/8, 1/160 s, ISO 200

We weren't the only people taking a walk in the fresh air. Two couples, one standing watching, the other walking away. I wonder what story this represents?

Two Couples || Olympus 100 mm, f/9, 1/800 s, ISO 200


Skiing in the Allgäu

The next day we made an early start to Gunzesried, scene of a most enjoyable mountain sunset shoot and moonlight walk back at the end of October. The car park was a lot emptier than then, especially when we arrived. The avalanche warning level was high - 4/5 and so the ski-tourers were not out in force as they might otherwise have been. The temperature on the car thermometer was -5.5°C as we geared up for our first cross country ski tour since Norway last February.

Fold in the Snow || Olympus 50 mm, f/8, 1/25 s, ISO 200
This was by far and away my favourite shot from the ski tour. A subtle fold in the snow, presumably hiding a stream below and forming a zig-zagging leading line towards the saplings. In an ideal world, I would have been able to get better separation between the saplings and the forest behind, but it'll do.

There are a couple of majestic old maple trees in the valley that I plan to revisit in autumn some time. In the meantime they stick out from the forest thanks to the fresh snow outlining their ancient bows.

Wizened Winter Maple || Olympus 50 mm, f/8, 1/50 s, ISO 200

The Bridge at Bad Hindelang

This was my third time shooting at the bridge near Bad Hindelang. The first trip was on a murky day in autumn when I discovered this wonderful covered bridge on a horseshoe bend. I returned in December, but the conditions weren't quite optimal. In an ideal world I'd have had some mist in the valley or some clouds swathing the forested peaks, but I'll take this for now.

The Bridge at Bad Hindelang - HDR || Olympus 8 mm, f/8, 1/13 s, ISO 200

Instead of the usual route home, we decided to come back over the Oberjoch pass. We waded through the snow to reach the overlook looking back down west over Bad Hindelang and the Jochstrasse.

Jochstrasse in the Allgäu || Olympus 8 mm, f/8, 1/250 s, ISO 200

The More It Snows...

The forecast was for 30-50 cm new snow in the Allgäu, 10-20 in the valley. It essentially snowed steadily all day at about -2°C, slowly building up in the garden. After lunch I took the camera out for my usual round between the villages. I love the way the snow highlights the tree branches. In any other weather this photo wouldn't work; there'd be zero separation and it would fall flat.

Snowy Boughs I || Olympus 57 mm, f/8, 1/40 s, ISO 200

Snowy Boughs II || Olympus 50 mm, f/8, 1/100 s, ISO 500

Beech trees always seem to hang onto their leaves for the longest time. Their golden yellow leaves always provide a striking counterpoint to the snow.

Hung out to Dry || Olympus 86 mm, f/5.6, 1/1250 s, ISO 1600

Beech Sapling in the Snow || Olympus 35 mm, f/5, 1/60 s, ISO 500

The confusion of the young birch (?) trees takes on a degree of regularity with a dash of snow.

Plantation || Olympus 50 mm, f/5.6, 1/100 s, ISO 320

As Sharon wandered off down the path...

Into the Forest || Olympus 29 mm, f/5.6, 1/60 s, ISO 400

One of the nice things about snow is that it lightens up the forest floor, making photography a lot easier. It also creates beautiful pastel colours, firstly as it throws an opaque layer in front of the subject. This will be more or less depending on the intensity of the snow, distance to the subject and length of exposure, all factors that need to be taken into account. The quality of the light is also beautiful and soft, being omnidirectional, at least whilst it's snowing.

Enchanted Woodland || Olympus 16 mm, f/5, 1/80 s, ISO 200

Cedars || Olympus 12 mm, f/5, 1/60 s, ISO 200

The Lonely Bench || Olympus 12 mm, f/5.6, 1/60 s, ISO 200

Into the Canopy Chaos || Olympus 18 mm, f/5.6, 1/40 s, ISO 400

Berries || Olympus 86 mm, f/5.6, 1/200 s, ISO 320

Winter Birch I || Olympus 38 mm, f/8, 1/20 s, ISO 200

Winter Birch II || Olympus 57 mm, f/8, 1/50 s, ISO 200

Ghost of an Egret || Olympus 100 mm, f/8, 1/100 s, ISO 200

Cedar and Rushes || Olympus 29 mm, f/8, 1/30 s, ISO 200

Sentinel || Olympus 80 mm, f/8, 1/30 s, ISO 200

Slow Rushes || Olympus 92 mm, f/4, 1/125 s, ISO 200

Reaching Out || Olympus 61 mm, f/8, 1/20 s, ISO 200

Above Hausen || Olympus 86 mm, f/8, 1/50 s, ISO 200

Hunter's Perch || Olympus 100 mm, f/8, 1/30 s, ISO 200

Out for a Spin || Olympus 57 mm, f/7.1, 1/60 s, ISO 200

Sledging in Hausen || Olympus 15 mm, f/7.1, 1/100 s, ISO 200

Three, || Olympus 61 mm, f/7.1, 1/80 s, ISO 200

or Four? || Olympus 50 mm, f/11, 1/50 s, ISO 200

Wintery Hausen || Olympus 54 mm, f/8, 1/100 s, ISO 200

Winter Walk || Olympus 100 mm, f/8, 1/50 s, ISO 200

Reduced to Geometry || Olympus 92 mm, f/8, 1/80 s, ISO 200

Gateway to Kaltenberg || Olympus 31 mm, f/8, 1/50 s, ISO 200

So what's your photographic muse? What do you find easy to shoot and which scenes present you with difficulties?

Wednesday 29 July 2020

Feedback on the First Workshops

"Apparently, if you try to cram two years of learning into 4-6 hour 1-2-1 workshop, the participants can find it a bit too much. Who knew?"
The Old Gypsum Mill || Olympus f/5.6, 1/125 s, ISO 1250 

I’ve now run my first two workshops for volunteer guinea-pigs recruited from among my local friends on the understanding that they would give me in-depth feedback on the sessions in lieu of payment. We had two great afternoons, one hiking in the local mountains in less than perfect weather and one shooting flowers in a friend’s back garden. We had several “aha” moments as they learned things about their cameras that they didn’t know before and both have got some great shots out of the sessions. But what did I learn?

Over the last 18 months I’ve invested a lot of time in my photographic education. I’ve read books, I’ve watched a ton of videos and online courses on photography and post-processing and I’ve endeavoured to put a lot of it into practice in the field. I think that most people would agree with me when I say that I’ve come a long way photographically in that time. I’ve almost completely changed my approach to photographing and my philosophy of photography. A lot of things are now obvious that would have been a complete mystery to me even two years ago. I was an idiot to think that I could convey the significant parts of that learning in a single session, but that’s what I set out to do. Twice. In my defence, the second session was probably much better structured than the first. But I need to trim it down much further, or at least give the students more time to take each aspect of the teaching on board before progressing to the next.

Let’s take a look at the two sessions and try to assess what works and what doesn’t and look at how to build this into planning future workshops.

In the Pöllat River || Olympus f/11, 2 s, ISO 200


Session 1: In The Pöllat Gorge

The first session was held at one of my favourite local spots – the Pöllat gorge below the fabulous Neuschwanstein castle near Füssen. My student, a friend from the Munich choir that I sing with, had previously been a teacher – a huge plus for me, as this was someone who had first-hand experience of teaching methods and knew what he was talking about when it came to feedback. We’d had a chance to chat a little about photography on the way down in the car and I’d already sounded him out concerning what he wanted to learn.

The fun part about this session was that Andrew had a relatively clear idea of the images he wanted to get, but wasn’t always clear on how to achieve those images technically. This was definitely something I could help with.

Parking the car at the Tegelberg car park (much cheaper than parking in Hohenschwangau at the bottom of the castle), we trekked along the base of the mountain, the clouds lingering in the trees above us. Excellent opportunity for composition questions 1 and 2: (1) What catches your attention, and (2) what aspect of the subject do you want to emphasise or caricature? (thanks Joshua Cripps!)

Moody, Misty Forest || Olympus f/5, 1/200 s, ISO 500

Arriving at the bottom of the Pöllat gorge, I was dismayed to see that the gorgeous wooden mill race had been very badly damaged in the recent storms. I sincerely hope that they repair it using the original wood, since this has always been a complete eye-catcher and really strong element for photos here. As it was, the heavy flow was just gushing out of the broken end of the trellis into a mess of tree branches. Such a shame.

After we'd walked around the bottom of the gorge for a bit, scouting compositions, we went a few meters downstream where it was a little quieter so that we could chat about how to emphasise the water movement, leading into a discussion of long exposures and tripods. I'd established in advance that Andrew would be using the Nikon 18-55 mm kit lens and managed to source a cheap step-up ring of the right diameter so that he could use my filter system to create a series of shots with different exposures.

Shooting in the Pöllat || Huawei P30 Pro

Having had a good long session at the bottom of the gorge, we walked up through the shady forest, looking for other compositions. There are some nice shots to be had of the falls as well as some nice intimate forest landscapes - what my father calls my signature shots. The moss was particularly appealing 

Moss Micro Landscape || Olympus f/4, 1/8 s, ISO 200

At this point, I forgot a bit that I was supposed to be leading a workshop and got side-tracked by taking my own images - wrong of me I know, but too easy to do in the circumstances. In future, I'm really going to have to put my own shots in the background, unless they're to make a teaching point.

Carrying on up to the path between Neuschwanstein and the Marienbrücke, we were rewarded by a moody view over Hohenschwangau with the sun breaking through the clouds. An impossible shot for Andrew's camera, but no match for modern exposure bracketing. Once again, I was putting my own photos first. But come on, who would have said no to this:

God-Rays over Hohenschwangau || Olympus Exposure Bracketing

After waiting a while in vain to see whether the weather would provide us with anything better, we headed on up to the Marienbrücke, the bridge overlooking Neuschwanstein, to see whether the light would allow us to catch any useful shots. Andrew took quite a few from the bridge and we toyed with the concept of including some foreground in a shot in order to establish a bit of 3-dimensionality to the scene.

It was quite late by the time we got back to the car and we were both starving, so we looked for a suitable hostelry. Waiting for food, I had a chance to go through my workshop cheat-sheets with him. In my mind I had planned to shoot and then go over the theory in the hope that he would be more receptive to the concepts - a teaching style that we often use at work. In reality, it would have been helpful to look at them beforehand and then try to put some of it into practice in the field.


Session 2: A Munich Garden

For the second session I visited my friend in her garden in Munich. Because one of her primary photographic interests was flowers and because they have a beautiful flower garden, this really worked out nicely. The weather was definitely playing ball this time as well, which really helped. It had rained just before I got there, but we had a great 4 h in the garden in lovely late afternoon light, shooting anything and everything in sight.

This time we were able to sit down before we started and look at some of the concepts that help me focus on what makes a good photo. I was delighted that my friend was able to make the intuitive jumps from the things I was pointing out (more here) to compositional consequences. Once we'd got some of the basics out of the way, we were able to knuckle down to the two issues that she had highlighted approaching the workshop; exposure and focus.

Reach for the Sky || Olympus f/8, 1/250 s, ISO 200

After explaining the various ways in which cameras measure exposure and the shortcomings of assuming that everything is 50% grey, we looked around for potential examples. She has a beautiful honeysuckle growing up the side of the garage. Against the sky, most cameras will underexpose the subject to avoid an overly-bright image, leaving the subject quite dull. Exposure compensation to the rescue (once we'd found out how to in the manual).

Essence of Hydrangea || Olympus f/8, 1/40 s, ISO 200

Looking back, we should have spent a little while at least concentrating on exposure, but I was so excited with the progress that I was all for moving swiftly on to the next issue; focus. Once we figured out how to give her back the control over what the camera was focusing on we even got a chance to look at the concept of depth of field before switching over to her macro lens and fiddling about with focus magnification in a foreign camera system.

Old Wooden Chair || Olympus f/8

All in all we had a great afternoon/evening working through various technical and compositional aspects before I was gently told to stop - I'd passed on enough information and time was required to process and practice.

Lessons Learned

What Went Well

Let's start with what went well:
  • The second workshop was much better structured than the first, working through the teaching materials and having a chance to put it all into practice.
  • Knowing both locations well before the shoots was essential. Even then there were surprises, like the demolished mill race at the Pöllat gorge.
  • Both locations were good and had some 'gimme' images where you couldn't really go wrong, whether Schloss Neuschwanstein or my friends gorgeous garden.
  • Having a few toys to hand to play with worked well, such as the ND filters for the gorge and my tiny fish-eye lens as a demonstration of how aperture works.
  • Getting the students to fill out a self-assessment form (below) well in advance of the workshop so that I could prepare a session to fit their individual needs worked really well.
  • The handouts I had prepared turned out to be really good teaching aids.
  • After the first workshop we sat down and went through a handful of the best images, looking at technique and possible tips. The offer is still out on the second workshop, but, life!

Challenges

  • One of the time-consuming aspects of both workshops was becoming familiar with other peoples’ cameras. After 18 months with my Olympus I can operate it pretty much blindfolded. Previously I’d been using a Panasonic bridge camera and so had at least a working knowledge of the menu structure. My students had Nikon and Cannon cameras respectively and finding functions in the various menus took time. If students aren’t familiar with their cameras, it’s essential that they bring the manual with them. It was also challenging switching between a mirrorless camera with all of the associated ease of use and the more flighty DSLRs.
  • The weather and, more importantly, the light during the first workshop was extremely challenging. But that’s life sometimes.
  • It’s important to establish ahead of time which lenses your students are bringing to the workshop. I’m used to the flexibility of being able to choose between ultra-wide angle, long telephoto and everything in between. Students aren’t always going to be able to bring that variety to the workshop and the location needs to be planned accordingly.

What Didn’t Go So Well

  • Looking back, although the first workshop was fun, setting out without covering at least the basic theory was a mistake. I was all gung-ho for the location and thought I could explain as we went. I couldn’t.
  • After the first few shots, I also assumed that the student was doing ok and didn’t need as much help or feedback. In future I’ll have to be more proactive in checking in with them.

Looking Forward

Looking forward, I think I will have to offer either one or the other; either a photo safari or a photography workshop. It’s much easier to concentrate on teaching skills in a calmer environment with few distractions, where we can sit down, talk about the principles and then put them into action.

On the other hand, once someone has mastered the basics, it will still be fun to head out to the hills to look at how to put those skills into practice.

Fairy-Tale Neuschwanstein || Olympus f/4.5, 1/8 s, ISO 800

My Questionnaires

I've created two questionnaires, one to give me a feel for the student's needs, one for them to give me feedback on the workshop so that I can continue to improve as an instructor. I'll reproduce them here for anyone wanting to use and adapt. I've created these using Google docs, and the answers flow directly into a table. I'm a huge fan of Google docs as they allow me to access the information on the go using a variety of platforms.

Student Assessment Form

I ask a lot about my students because I really want to understand their needs and offer a tailor-made session. It also helps them to assess where they are and think a bit about the issues involved. I also ask them either in advance of - or during the session how they would define a "good" photo. Although a straightforward question, it really helps focus on the issues.







Student Feedback Form

Feeback is critical to the process of becoming a better instructor - which is a huge part of the process for me. Here's my Student Feedback Form