Portland Night Vista Bridge

Portland is a challenging city to take a nice "cityscape" of. The problem is not getting a good elevated position near the city. Portland is surrounded by hills. No, the problem is all the trees. There are very few unobstructed sight lines. And then there is Vista Bridge.

I soon realised that the location of Vista Bridge would be my best bet for a decent shot of Portland but the sightlines are still fairly restricted. Also, on my large format camera I don't currently have a "long" lens. What to do with the rest of the frame? I decided that the city in the midst of this forest was like an oasis of light. The highway leading into it was dark, of course, but with a long shutter opening and a few passing cars I was able to visualise it as a river of light flowing into the brilliant city skyline.

You see, a good picture is made in that period of time between noticing something and tripping the shutter. That is when your brain needs to be working. There is a little that you can do after the picture is made but you can't change the important things like where you pointed the camera, whether you used a long or short exposure and when you tripped the shutter.

Ultimately, this is why large format cameras take better pictures. Your brain is a limited resource. If you spread that thinking around two or three pictures in an evening you might take some very good ones. If you took 300 that night how much did you think about any of them?

Scottish Sunset -- The Secret Place

Fortune favours the prepared.

It is very unusual for me not to have exposure information for a large format shot of mine. I have a special note page on my iPod Touch that I use expressly for taking these notes. However, sometimes nature just doesn't give you much time. If you are not prepared you will miss out.

So what does it mean to be prepared as a large format film shooter? Well, I'm glad you asked.

It means that you already took care of the basics necessary to carry and use a camera as a system:

You obtained a portable case that will hold the camera, lenses, film holders, light meter and accessories that you will need with you and you organised that case. It means that you have batteries in anything like meters or flashes that might need it and spares as well. It also means that anything that needs setting up like infinity stops have been preset beforehand.

It means that the last time you went shooting you unloaded all the film holders that you used and you recorded what type of film you loaded in each holder. It means that you labelled the holders prominently so that you know what you are loading when you shoot. It means that you always turn the dark slide around from silver to black after you shoot a frame so that you know the film inside has been used and it means that you always look to see that the dark slide is set to silver before you load a holder in the camera to shoot.

Being prepared means you know which directions are East, South, North and West. It means you know when the sun is setting and rising and the moon as well. You know what phase the moon is in. If you notice awesome light when out and about, you note that time on your watch so you know roughly when the light will be nice the next day.

Being prepared means having one eye on the weather forecast and another on an astronomical calendar. It means your tripod is with you and your cable release too. It means you have a plan for what to do with your gear if it suddenly starts to rain.

Being prepared means having read up and practiced until blindly comfortable any technique that you may be thinking of using. It means taking pictures when you are not sure what the result will be. It means listening to your inner voice that says, "Wow!"

Being prepared means revisiting your successes and failures and analysing them for future lessons. It means taking one shot and living with the consequences. The awesome shot is seldom in the middle of a six shot burst or a 5 exposure bracket sequence. If you never shoot at the wrong exposure you will never learn anything. But remember what you learn and apply it where it counts.

Being prepared means saying your prayers. Because as hard as you may work at it. Any awesome moment that comes that you manage to capture. Just like the rest of your life. Is only grace.

The Burning Bush

What you see above is one of my more enduringly popular images. It almost didn't happen.

A few years ago we had a nice Australian gentleman working at my office whose name was Paul Materatzzo. Paul shared a passion with a few of us for taking photographs. There was also an Indian gentleman named Kaushal and a Sri Lankan gentleman named Reggie. Together we planned to take a trip out to somewhere wild in Qatar and do some shooting one day after work. After a month or so of attempting to plan this it all came together one Thursday and we left work in Paul's car headed for the Western edge of Qatar. A place called Zekreet.

Zekreet is a place where the normally flat and featureless landscape of Qatar is broken by some small buttes and valleys between the buttes. A lot of this area I had seen from the road but not explored because I don't have a four wheel drive. Paul had a four wheel drive.

We started out by exploring some places I had been before. The sun was setting on the water's edge and we took some photos like that but decided to start heading back. As we started back we saw a path that lead into a valley between some buttes and decided to explore. It was an interesting scene because it also contained some small trees which are otherwise very rare in unsheltered parts.

As we came to a halt in the valley I almost immediately saw this scene. I saw the shape of the bush, the colours in the sky and the position of the sun. I knew it was a scene that was not going to last and I ran out the car door almost before we had stopped. I grabbed my camera and tripod and raced to extend the legs as I ran to position. I was so enthusiastic that I actually ripped one of the legs completely off.

Panic!

I raced back to see if anyone else had brought a tripod along and there was only Kaushal's cheap and flimsy little video tripod. After asking if I could use it I raced to take my shot. I shot at full aperture in order to get as fast a shutter speed as possible for the ISO50 slide film I was using. I had a fast f1.9 lens mounted on the Mamiya and with this and the flimsy tripod I was able to get the shot. In fact, I had the presence of mind to turn around (something I always recommend when shooting dramatic skies) and see an equally amazing sight behind me.

It is not every shot that you know will turn out well but these two were so clearly seen by me at the time I just knew they would be strong.

P.S. Here is the other shot:

Moonrise Over Doha

The story of this photograph is one of exploration and adventure.

This began as many good photographs begin with an idea. A vision. The moon rising above the dramatic towers of Doha's new buildings. I knew I wanted a full moon. This would also ensure that the sun was setting at the same time, hopefully giving me a usable sky. As a man with a family and a day job, however, sunset is almost never a time of day when I am without responsibilities. The idea was on back burner.

As a photographer, I keep a weather eye on the upcoming moon phases. It did not escape my notice that an upcoming full moon was going to land on a weekend day. Of course there is no telling what a sky will be like until the sun actually starts to set but I took a chance on planning an outing to catch the moonrise and my son, Aaron, decided to come along as well. We set out in my old American muscle car full of hope and adventure.

Our first challenge on setting out was to find a good vantage point. I have several places that I favour for good views of the Doha skyline but none of them are from due west of the city. To have the moon rising over the city I would need to be due west because the moon would rise in the east. As the sun set lower in the sky we were able to start fine tuning our direction by using the lengthening shadows. We knew that a full moon is opposite the sun so that the shadows from the setting sun will point in the direction that the full moon will rise from. Using this information we started racing around areas west of the city, the V8 bellowing, looking for a place with a decent vantage that would view the city from the necessary angle.

By the time we found a hopeful looking spot we had already tried and ruled out a few others. The sun was already set as we scrambled over the deserted construction site to try to locate a decent place to set up. Photographing in the middle east is not the same as in my home country and we hoped that no one would think we were trying to photograph their homes or engaging in espionage.

The area we had found was a bare low hilltop that had been cleared for a construction project but not yet built on. It was covered with regular mounds of gravel and sand that were each the result of a single dump truck unloading. It made an interesting foreground that was both regular and irregular. However, I was still uncertain if the sky was going to do anything worthwhile and the moon was already rising high enough that it was going to be hard to get the moon and buildings into the same tight shot, which had been my original vision.

Part of getting a good photograph outdoors, however, is rolling with what you are presented with. I started thinking of a different shot, one that would encompass the whole skyline in a wider angle shot. The difficulty with a long narrow target such as the skyline of a city from a vantage such as this is keeping enough interest in the picture area. I found that a little of the foreground rubble was interesting but I was getting such a wide expanse of it that it was fairly monotonous. I started looking at nearby mounds and then I saw the tyre.

When I saw the tyre I knew how it had to be. The tyre would anchor the picture. As I took the picture I knew I had something. Since I shot it on Fuji Velvia slide film it would be some time before I saw it but my past experience with this film assured me that it would do magic with the light and deal gracefully with the extremes of lighting between the full moon and the shaded rubbish pile.

Driving back with Aaron was great. I was worried that he would have been bored but he said he had a great time. As I was working on this shot Aaron was working on another which turned out to be crazily creative and brilliant. It was truly a good day out.

And we each got our shot.