Let me start off by saying this is a techy and camera-specific post for shooters. Chris Lee is an excellent sports photographer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Apparently, he is also excellent at reading the owner’s manual to his Canon 1D. Many professional photographers shoot their camera in a full manual mode to ensure they have the most control of the exposure. This works great until the subject you’re tracking runs into a shadow and your settings are now three […]
With the economy in such poor shape, it’s no surprise that we have been seeing layoffs nationwide in all industries. But few have been as hard hit as newspapers. I was an intern at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch when a round of layoffs swept the newsroom. No one knew what was happening. I walked in the building and was stopped with many others at the security desk. The guards had a list of names of people they weren’t supposed to […]
Some assignments can sound that boring. I’ve been told to go out and photograph a building for a story. Too many times. Most architectural photographers will either use tilt-shift lenses on a 35mm camera or some sort of larger format of camera that can adjust the lens and film planes accordingly. This is because on a standard lens, the lines on a building appear to converge. This is known in the photographic world as keystoning or tombstoning. Proper usage of […]
Most people can enjoy or appreciate a spring shower. It takes a bit of a unique personality like that of my own to enjoy strong storms that produce heavy rain, hail, lightning and occasionally tornadoes. I have what one might call a slight obsession with storms. There is something soothing about them even thought they can often be incredibly violent. When I know storms are coming, I listen to NOAA weather radio, SKYWARN frequencies and constantly monitor live Doppler radar […]
If there was one valuable thing about photography that I learned in college, it was the science behind lighting. Understanding the inverse square law and how multiple lights can affect an image proved to be invaluable to me. While I was at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, I had an editor give me the idea of shooting a food set with multi-point lighting. The basic multi-point setup includes three lights. One each to the left and right and one from behind. […]