Photography - What's LUCK Got to do With It?

There are those who would say there is no such thing as luck.  I would disagree.  There is good and bad luck.  With proper planning bad luck can be minimized, but not eliminated.  For example, let's say you have a wedding to photograph.  You've planned everything, will arrive 2 hours early to make sure you have time to do what you need to do, but on the way you get caught in a traffic jam that is not moving, and won't move for several hours.  And you're completely boxed in, no way to turn around.  Or worse, a car ran a red light and crashed into you, destroying your car and perhaps your equipment (hopefully not you).  Bad luck is rather negative, and since I'd prefer the positive kinds of things, I'll talk about good luck.

The first thing I'll say about good luck is that when it happens, you have to be ready and willing to take advantage of it.  I was just reading about how some photographers got their start though chance encounters with those that could help them.  Perhaps they needed an assistant and you happened to run into them at a restaurant totally be chance.  Or perhaps a magazine editor just happened to see some photos you had taken, again by chance, loved what they saw, contacted you, and gave you an assignment.

One piece of luck I had happened when I wanted to get some images of the solar eclipse.  I knew the eclipse was happening, so that wasn't luck, but when I was ready to take the photos, the beach low clouds and fog had come in.  But the luck happened because the clouds thinned out and had just enough breaks in them to not only allow me to capture the eclipse, but to lower the contrast enough to get good exposures.

  Another piece of good luck happened when this rainbow appeared.  Just by chance I was in the right place at the right time.  But when both of these opportunities arose, I was ready and prepared to capture them.



Although I prefer shooting people (with my camera, LOL!!!!), I love beauty of all kinds.  And with luck, I will keep finding beauty in my photography.  And if by chance you happen by here.....

Back to Health Today

I was in Whole Foods today, and was in the mood for a healthy dessert for later on.  Well, even in a health food store, it is difficult if not impossible to find a healthy dessert, one without possible GMOs, sugar, fructose (aka high fructose corn syrup, which is most likely GMO and probably worse than sugar), or artificial ingredients or chemicals.  I gave up and just bought a loaf of their organic freshly baked bread.  I don't know if they still carry desserts by Sugar Plum Fairy, which unbelievably highlighted sugar in its name.

As I've written in the past, health care should have been about educating people about the dangers of all of the above, how to eat a healthy diet to avoid sickness and attain optimal health, as well as lowering hospital and health care costs.  Not to mention many other needed reforms.  Some interesting facts:

Fact:  The U.S. is ranked 33rd of all countries for life expectancy.
Fact:  According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the U.S. is ranked 38th in health care for all countries.
Fact:  Also, according to WHO, the U.S is ranked #1 for health expenditure per capita for that in order to get that health care rank!

Remember, you are what you eat, and what you absorb.  If you want to have a chance to be healthy, you MUST eat healthy, and that means eliminating those things mentioned above.  It made all the difference in the world to my health!  The above facts are unlikely to change....unless you take responsibility for your health by making the appropriate changes.

Keep in mind that when you make changes in your diet, begin to take supplements, or begin an exercise program, you won't get or see immediate results.  Unlike drugs, results may take a month, 6 months, or a few years.  But the results are more permanent and don't have side effects.

One last word - after I gave up sugar, everything else started tasting better.  Actually, the hardest part was (and is) trying to find food that didn't have refined sugars.  So if you're sick and tired of being sick and tired, you know what you need to do.

Staying healthy may not be easy, but it is sure worth it.  So, here's to your health.

Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder (or, in this case, the Photographer)

Just a short post about beauty - which I have always enjoyed (beauty, not a post about it, although hope you might enjoy that).  As the title suggests, beauty is subjective, although certain images will be found to be beautiful by most, if not all, who view it.  The range of subjects that contain beauty is endless.  Here are just a very few examples of things I have always found beautiful.

It might be of a sunset (shot from 1st Street in Hermosa Beach, CA) -

or Fall foliage (as in this shot taken in Fredonia, NY) -

or what I enjoy most - photographing people (shot in Palisades Park, Santa Monica, CA) -

This image was done indoors in the West LA area -

If you would like to have photos similar to these last images, please feel free to contact me after the New Year (2014).

I always try to bring a camera with me wherever I go - you never know what may happen at any given time, such as this Rainbow, shot near Solvang, CA (wish I had a wider angle lens, as this rainbow went from ground to ground) -

As always, thanks for stopping by, and have a wonderful remainder of 2013.

Photography and the Pros and Cons of TFCD, TFP

For those of you who may not know what TFCD and TFP means, it is the photographer and subject sharing their Time For a CD of the images, or for some Prints, although the print option seems to be less common now with digital having taken over from film.  No money changes hands.   What are some of the possible pros and cons of doing this and why might the photographer agree to this?  Is it worth doing, or is the old saying true, "anything free is worth what you pay for it?"

As for the second question, that is really up to the subject and the photographer.  And this comes down to their reasons for doing this.

As for the cons:
1.  Because no money changes hands, it is very easy for someone to not show up, or show up late. They lose nothing by doing this, except perhaps their reputation.  Professionals always show up, and on time.  Perhaps it would be a good idea to treat this as a regular photo session and get a deposit, which would be refunded if and only if the subject shows up on time.
2.  Either or both may not try as hard as they would if they were getting paid.  Again, being professional means you will give it your best.  Many years ago I drove 20 miles to do a TFP with a model who was recommended to me.  She had visitors coming over, was smoking funny stuff, constant interruptions, and the results were no good.
3.  I have heard of some models trading their time, only to never receive their images or prints.
4.  TFCD and TFP is somewhat limited, because of the above reasons, and also because the photographer will usually only do this if the other person has a look or idea that will add to their portfolio of samples of their work.

And for the pros:
1.  If you are both professional, you can both get some great images without having to pay.
2.  If you get great images and are both professional, you'll be likely to tell others and get paying work.
3.  You should both have a great time at the session.

I used to skate at Venice Beach all the time (now I play paddle tennis instead) and saw a beautiful you lady I wanted to do TFP photography with (she was also skating all the time out there), so asked her, and she said she wasn't interested.  But as time went by, we saw each other often at Venice Beach skating, and then we discovered we lived just a few apartments from each other on the same street, so she finally agreed.  She was a professional model and actress, and we got lots of great images.  Here are a few.

All the sessions were enjoyable - some were shot at UCLA Sculpture Garden, some at Venice Beach, and some (with the bodybuilder, who lived next door to her, and wasn't originally planned) were taken just outside her apartment.

Will I still do TFCD?  With the right person and for the right images, and with a model release.

Vitamins and Supplements

I was going to write about photography today, but just heard on the news about a new study that showed vitamins aren't needed, and some may be dangerous.  Funny how one negative study makes the news, but they never talk about all the positive studies.

And you won't hear the following, most likely:
Properly prescribed prescription drugs kill over 100,000 people a year.
Vitamins and Supplements generally kill zero.  But on the news they say they can be dangerous.

What was not mentioned on the news report?  Who paid for the study, what vitamins were used (there are many cheap vitamins and supplements, as well as synthetic ones, and ones that are pretty worthless as the dosages are so low), who did the study, and what previous and other studies how shown.  Any study can show any result when the study is flawed, and probably will be if the researcher wants that result.

There are studies that have shown Vitamin C does nothing for you and may be harmful.  Yet when I started taking it a few times a day, I stopped getting colds and flu.

I could go on about all the other benefits I have gotten from taking vitamins and supplements, and there are many, but the main point is to hopefully get you to do your own research, and not to believe what you hear on the media reports.  As they say with investing, do your due diligence.

Well, that's it for today.  I wish all the veterans who may visit here a happy Veterans Day (me too, as I'm a veteran), and thanks for your service.

Your Health, and Variables that can Affect It

In my last post, I talked about variables related to photography.  One of those variables included health (yours and your subjects), because if either you or your subject is suffering from poor health, it is likely your photos will also suffer.  Below is only a partial list of things that can help you gain optimal health, or cause you to suffer from poor health.  But first, a little story about what lead me in the direction of optimal health.

When I was in my teens and twenties, my thinking was that I wanted to enjoy what I ate, and if it cost me a few years late in life, that was OK.  But I soon learned that eating unhealthy caused problems with my health, and therefore I was not happy, especially when I started having stomach aches every day.  That turned out to be an ulcer.  When I cut out hot dogs, packaged meats like bologna, salami, and other cold cuts, and soft drinks, the ulcer went away.  But a few years later I was diagnosed with nervous stomach, had lots of bloating and cramps and nausea - still no fun.  So I cut out everything that had sugar, artificial sweeteners, preservatives, or other chemicals, and my nervous stomach slowly disappeared.  And there were other benefits - I got a lot less colds and flu, and less severe when I did.  Then along the way, I added in vitamins and other supplements to fill in any gaps I was missing in my diet.  And now I almost never get sick.

What does the above have to do with dietary variables?  Pretty much everything.  By controlling the variables in the list below, there is a very good chance you can get similar results.  And there is the added benefit that when you are in good health you won't have to take prescription drugs, which have nasty side effects (including killing you).  Keep in mind one important thing - changing these variables and controlling them will NOT give you immediate results (my nervous stomach slowly faded away over a period of about 6 months, and has never come back again).  So don't give up.

Some of the variables that can affect your health:

1.  Quality of sleep
2.  Drugs (Prescription or otherwise)
3.  Your diet - what you eat as well as what you should avoid, and has its own list of variables
4.  Stress
5.  Vitamins and Supplements
6.  Lifestyle
7.  Exercise
8.  Environmental pollution
9.  Etc. (everything I've left out)

As far as dietary variables - eat healthy (whole foods, organic when possible) and take supplements.  Avoid GMO foods, sugar and artificial sweeteners, processed foods, soft drinks (including some of those masquerading as healthy), preservatives, artificial colors, and other chemicals that don't belong in your food.

Eliminate these variables, at least as many as you can, and start enjoying a healthy and happy life, which will lead to everything you do being that much better.  And if photography is one of the things you do, as you feel better and more energetic, your images will show it.

NOTE:  Please feel free to comment on anything on this blog.  If you have questions about photography or nutrition, I will do my best to answer in a future post, or point you to somewhere that can help.

Photography - The Variables

There are many variables in photography (as there are in health, and life in general).  Depending on what you can do to eliminate them will determine the outcome of your images.  By eliminating a variable, I mean turning it into something that you can keep constant, that will no longer change.  For example, with enough practice and education, and knowing how to use your camera's settings, you can always get proper, if not perfect exposure.  Then you have one less variable to think about, and one less variable that could give you poor results.

Below is a list of some variables in photography that you can control (I'm sure there are a lot more):

1.  Lighting
2.  Color balance
3.  Exposure
4.  Post processing
5.  Posing (many variables related to this, such as hand placement, standing, sitting, etc.)
6.  Hair and make-up
7.  Clothing
8.  Your personality, as well as your subject(s)
9.  Focal length of the lens
10.  Aperture and speed you use for a particular photograph
11.  If shooting outdoors, the weather
12.  Backgrounds
13.  Your subjects facial expressions
14.  Your health (which includes another whole set of variables)
15.  The camera you use
16.  Etc.  (The variables I can't think of, LOL)

Each item in the above list, if not eliminated as a variable, will lessen the quality of the final image.  The more you are able to control, the better your final image.

I've been doing photography for over 25 years, actually a lot longer if you count the small metal box camera I received as a gift when I was 7 years old.  And a lot of the above listed variables got me, or I should say, my images!  But as long as you learn from what went wrong, your results will constantly improve.  Below are some examples of variables that affected my photos negatively:

This photo was due to an incorrect camera setting.  This was a Canon digital, and I was using, Av with flash.  Well, with that combination, the camera ignored the flash in determining exposure, and exposed as though there was no flash, and exposed at 1/6 second, hand held!  Once I realized what was happening, and corrected for this, the exposures were 1/60 second, and no more problem.

The following photo was taken with Kodachrome 25 with a Nikon camera.  Unfortunately, the light meter had the wrong information about the ASA (now ISO) - I forgot to change it after shooting ASA 125 or 400 film, so the image was way underexposed.  The same can happen now if you shoot in manual with the exposure being off by as much, or even in the auto modes if your light reading is taken in the wrong area.  As mentioned in a previous post, if your exposure is off, but you shot in RAW, you might still get decent results.

This mistake was discovered long after we had both climbed the tree for these images.  Digital cameras eliminated this problem pretty much because you can check your results as you go, and make the necessary adjustments on the spot.

Photography - Should You Get the Best Equipment?

There are a lot of variables in photography leading up to the final image.  And as my photography professor said, "Eliminate the variables."  At least eliminate those you can, and adjust those you can't.  Your equipment is one of the variables you can adjust.  So although great equipment won't make you a great photographer, it will help you capture better quality images with a lower chance of equipment failure (which would give you no images).  Also keep in mind that although better equipment may cost more initially, over time it may well be less expensive.  For example, one camera that costs less may only be good for 50,000 shutter releases before failure, while another may cost twice the price, but last for 150,000 shutter releases, plus give you other added benefits such as better quality in low light situations, may be more weather proof, and give you better quality images.  It won't make you a better photographer, but all else being equal, it will give you better results.  For example, below are two photos shot with two different cameras and lenses.  The first was from the less expensive one.  The lighting was about the same - at night with on camera flash.

The top photo was taken with a less expensive camera which works great with lots of light, but the image starts to degrade under low light conditions.  The second was taken with a better camera yielding better results.  As always, clicking on the photo will show a larger size image.

This is just one example to illustrate one possible variable.  In a future post I will try to list all the variables.

Have a great day and week.

Halloween Carnaval 2013 - West Hollywood - Part IV (the Final Installment for this year)

I go to this Halloween celebration to enjoy the fun of Halloween - I'm too old to Trick or Treat anymore - that was fun when I was much younger.  Back then I didn't know how bad all those shopping bags of candy were.  Now I do, so it's good I don't do that anymore, and that I found this replacement for it.  Of course, as a photographer I go to record as many of the beautiful people and costumes as I can find.  Most of the people are there to have a great time and be photographed, so getting great expressions - when you can see the expressions - is a photographers dream come true.  As the night goes on, and it becomes extremely crowded, it gets difficult to capture images as too many people crowd around and you can't get a clear view of what you would like.  Sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you miss the shot you would have liked to get.  So if you find these posts, and were in West Hollywood on Halloween, your photo may not be here.

Thanks to all the photo opportunities, and changing light conditions, it was a great way to test a new camera body, as well as experiment with the settings.  At one point, I thought the camera was starting to malfunction.  The photos that made me think this are below.  What happened was that the crowd I had gone through was so thick with people, that the mode dial on the camera got rubbed against and changed from the setting I was using to Av (aperture priority).  In this mode, the flash fired, but the exposure time was for the available light, so was around a second long.  If I hadn't been shooting in RAW (as mentioned in earlier posts), I could not have salvaged those two photos.

I hope some of my comments have been interesting and/or helpful, and the photos enjoyable.  Here are the rest of them from Halloween 2013:

The two photos above were shot when the crowd caused my mode dial, on the camera, to change.  In some ways, the photos look more like a party is going on, which it was.

This was very close to the last photo of the night.  She had tapped my back with her whip because I wasn't wearing a costume.  I forgot to tell her I was dressed as a photographer, although not sure that would have worked.  Anyway, I told her that because she whipped me, she had to let me take her photo.  Here's the result.  Verrry nice.

This one was a request - I hope they are able to find it.  I forgot to give them the link to this blog.

  With few exceptions, I shot just one photo of each different person or group, and then moved on to find the next one.  Why I shoot this way will be the subject of another blog post.

Have a wonderful day, and hope you enjoyed the last of my Halloween photos for this year.

Halloween Carnaval 2013 - West Hollywood - Part III (of IV) - The Bad

I wanted to stay positive with this series of posts; however, knowing what happened at the Halloween Carnaval may help prevent it from happening to you in the future.  The Pulp Friction stage blocked just about half of Santa Monica Blvd, causing a bottleneck of people, shown in the photo below (this was shortly before things got over crowded and chaotic).

It later got so over filled with Halloweeners (made up that word) that it became difficult to get through the area.  That happened wherever there were stages and performances.  But it was worse for this one. Due to some type of emergency (see NOTE at end of this post), a person on the stage of Pulp Friction asked everyone in front of that stage to move to the other side of SM Blvd before they could continue the show.  I was just passing through (trying to, anyway, as I could barely move before that announcement).  At that point, things got pretty scary - people were pushing and shoving from behind, but no way to move forward in front.  A girl next to me got knocked down, luckily others helped her back up quickly, before others might have been pushed on top of her.  This reminded me of the incident with an escalator when people couldn't clear the bottom fast enough and several people got injured.  In this case there were too many people who felt that if they pushed and shoved hard enough they would get through.

What's the solution?  Better preparations for possible emergencies.  And perhaps enlarging the Carnaval area.

Well, anyway, that was the bad.  Now let's get back to the good and the beautiful, and some ugly, in the following of photos:

The above was not an entrance to a club, but rather, their "costume."  Pretty clever, no?

Not sure what was happening with this one, but it looked interesting, LOL.

The Sheriff was really a Sheriff.

Some of the costumes were pretty minimal.  Luckily, it wasn't too chilly out.

One more installment to come, and then that's it for Halloween 2013.  Hope you've enjoyed the views thus far.  Perhaps I'll get your photo next year (assuming the weather is good again, and I go).  As always, have a great time whatever you may be doing, and stay well.

NOTE (added Nov 5) - I found out the emergency was a person who caught fire, and later died.  The link to the story is here:  http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-halloween-burning-death-20131104,0,1901781.story#axzz2jpkuau00