Photo Traveler

Bob Krist’s Travel Photography Blog

Portable soft light solution

Destinations,Lighting,Photo Gear,Photo Techniques,Travel — April 30, 2009

Here are some subjects I’ve never been assigned to photograph: a chiseled, oiled, body builder; a chiseled, sweaty, mean-looking linebacker or killer ninja; a chiseled, oiled, bikini-clad supermodel. You know, those subjects that you see sometimes in the location portrait lighting books and blogs.

No, McNally and Hobby get all those jobs. Jobs that require lots of small specular light sources over which you can exercise total control, and are shot in abandoned warehouses, desert sand dunes, and gigantic college gymnasiums, with enough space and time to not only to place your lights, but for a video crew to immortalize the shoot as well!

No, the jobs that I, and most travel photographers, get are lighting the locations themselves as well as the people in them, and those locations are almost always dark: nightclubs, shop interiors, bars, pubs. They are always crowded with the general public, run by managers who are more concerned with you not annoying their patrons with your popping flashes than helping you make art, and require you to get in and out in minutes.

(Where did my karma go wrong, I sometimes wonder? I mean, I can live without the linebackers, weight lifters, and ninjas, but don’t I deserve just one bikini-clad supermodel shoot? ) No, I can’t worry about how best to sculpt the tricep of a flamenco dancer with a snooted kicker light,

Photo © Bob Krist

I just have to make a broadly and softly lit publishable picture in less than 10 minutes, and get moving before I get thrown out (and I have been thrown out of better, and far worse, places than this…sometimes even for using a flash!). Fortunately, though, I’ve worked up a pretty good portable one-light set up to help me do it… Read more…

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Three spots left in Maine

Travel,Workshops & Seminars — April 28, 2009

Photo © Bob Krist

Just heard from the folks at the Maine Media Workshops that there are only three spots left open for my June 28th-July 4th digital travel photography workshop. Great time to be in Maine (although the sunrises, like this one at Pemaquid Point Lighthouse, are early and the sunsets late that early in the summer…but the lobsters are juicy!). Check out the details here.

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Yo! You guys gonna be in Jersey on the 13th?

Events,Legal Issues,Workshops & Seminars — April 27, 2009

Courtesy HBO.com

Yeah, what exit? Cuz it’s the return of the prodigal son. That’s right, me. Born in Jersey City, raised in Guttenberg and then Fort Lee (where the Sopranos only wished they could live). I’m comin’ back to bond with my peeps May 13 at the NJ chapter of the American Society of Media Photographers salon at Unique Photo in Fairfield (hey, look it up….whaddoo I look like? A Google map?).

We’re gonna talk turkey, like how not to starve to death in the current economic climate, but we’re gonna lookit a lot nice snaps too. Gonna be fun, educational, and I think, basically, free. (For ASMP members, that is. The general public? Well, you gotta buy a $20 ticket, but then, all mysterious-like, you get a $20 gift certificate in return….is that beyootiful or what? Just don’t axe no questions that don’t involve, you know, fertography, and everything is cool.)

My “honorarium” (nudge, nudge, say no more!) is goin’ right to the ASMP Legal Action fund—the one last pure outlet for your dues dollars (and my speaking fees) to fight those @#$%&**###@@!’ing copyright claim jumpers and “Fair Use” eggheads from the “copyleft.” (Hey, if I had a trust fund, I might be all for “Fair Use” too).

But noooooo, I gotta still sell pitchers to eat, so “f” Lawrence Lessig and all his Stanford cronies who want my content for free so they can “sample” it at will to keep their tenured positions at overpriced private colleges (and I speak from experience, havin’ put several kids through them).

Wait, am I being too harsh?…. Yeah?….So what!

Cry me a river…..Waaaaaaaah! (as Artie Lange, another one of my Jersey brothers, might say).

But seriously, it’s gonna be fun…..

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It’s Not About the Camera…really!

Destinations,Ironies,Photo Gear,Travel — April 24, 2009

I just got my May copy of National Geographic and was pleasantly surprised to find a double page picture of mine in the Visions of Earth section. I’ve submitted to this section before but never made the cut and was tickled by the fact that when they were trolling the files at Corbis looking for fodder for this feature, they actually pulled this one out.

Of course, I would have been more tickled had they then contacted me, so I could have made the sale and not shared the booty with my agency! But you know what they say about half a loaf….er, actually, when my current contract lapses, and I sign the new contract, it’ll be more like 45% of a loaf. But that’s a topic for another post.

For a quick look at the spread, and one other funny thing about the whole situation, hit the jump.

In the Jungle with Phil Flash

Destinations,Lighting,Photo Techniques,Travel,Workshops & Seminars — April 20, 2009

From aboard the National Geographic Explorer in French Comoros, Indian Ocean

It may seem counterintuitive to bring a flash into a tropical jungle streaming with hot beams of sunlight, but that’s just what I did when our expedition ship visited M’Bouzi Island, a small island near Mayotte in the French Comoros that serves as a refuge for lemurs.

The trees were loaded with these cute little creatures, found only on Madagascar and the Comoros, but they were usually backlit, or sitting in splotchy light or shade. Digital, and film, hates splotchy light—there’s just too much dynamic range for the chip to record.

Plus, when you’ve got a subject with big dreamy eyes, like these guys, you want to make the most of them and make sure those big eyes have a little catchlight. For the formula that worked the best for me in this situation, hit the jump.
Read more…

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Fifteen Minutes of Financial Fame

Ironies — April 19, 2009

From aboard the National Geographic Explorer off the coast of Mozambique

The Wall Street Journal published a nice interview with me about travel photography in their Saturday edition.

Here’s the online version. Check out the multimedia show I did for their site as well. Now that I’ve made the pages of the WSJ, my 87-year-old father finally acknowledges that what I do may actually be called a job! If I could just score some of bailout bonus funds that other WSJ subjects seem to get, my weekend would be complete….

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USA Today: Doing the Right Thing

Legal Issues,Travel — April 18, 2009

From aboard the National Geographic Explorer in the Indian Ocean

A moon jellyfish and snorkeler off Farquhar Atoll, Seychelle Islands. Photo © Bob Krist

Piracy is everywhere these days….we’ve really been feeling it aboard the NG Explorer in this last week or so as the Somali pirates kept forcing our itinerary to change to avoid them.

But piracy isn’t restricted to the high seas anymore. More and more photo contests are holding your copyright hostage just by entering, and trying to build photo libraries with your work, without any compensation.

Just before I left, the travel editor of USA Today, an old friend, asked if I woud be a judge of their travel photo contest. No money, but a chance to have lunch with my old editor and get a trip to DC where my sons live. So I jumped on the opportunity.

Even though unfair photo contest rules have become a pet peeve of mine lately (see the post A Photo Contest with Fair Rules????), I was heading out the door and didn’t read the USA Today’s contest rules. Fortunately, a sharp-eyed reader of this blog named Marcelo did and pointed out the following paragraph, which is pretty much a pirates’ declaration of war on copyright .

Copyright. By entering the Contest, each contestant
grants to Sponsor an exclusive, royalty-free and irrevocable right
and license to publish, print, edit or otherwise use the
contestant’s submitted entry, in whole or in part, for any purpose
and in any manner or media (including, without limitation, the
Internet) throughout the world in perpetuity, and to license others
to do so, all without limitation or further compensation. Each
contestant further agrees that if his/her entry is selected by
Sponsor as the winning entry, he/she will sign any additional
license or release that Sponsors may require, and will not publicly
display his or her photo submission without the express permission
of Sponsor.

Once tipped off by reader Marcelo, I emailed my objections to the editor, who then took them to the legal department. I said I couldn’t be a judge if the rules stayed pat. A fellow judge took a similar stand.

Was the editor able to get the terms modified? Did we keep the pirates at bay? Did USA Today step up and do the right thing? Hit the jump to find out.

Twilight in Vegas–a video tutorial

Lighting,Photo Techniques,Travel — April 16, 2009

I’m in Chicago on a shoot, and one of the things I’m doing is a lot of skyline and twilight work. Which reminded me of a shoot in Las Vegas (personally, I’d take Chicago any day, but that’s the stuff of another entry) I did a while ago for the Epson Academy series. It’s an excerpt from a longer section on film scanning, hence the use and reference to film as well as digital.

But no matter, the information is applicable to either medium. Twilight is one of my favorite times to shoot because it’s basically weatherproof: if it’s clear or cloudy, at twilight, that sky will go a nice blue. It’s a great time for shooting skylines, streetscenes, lighted monuments, campfires….anyplace where you have a mix of artificial light sources along with daylight. Please, no comments about my lousy jokes, waving hands, and grammatical stumbles…I’ve heard them all from my wife already!

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Don’t let the sun catch you squinting…

Destinations,Lighting,Photo Techniques,Travel — April 13, 2009

With apologies to Gerry and the Pacemakers (Merseysiders whose 1964 release “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying” got me through some tough break-ups in middle and high school) comes another confession: I do some commercial work. Yes, it’s not all exotic landscapes and cultural documentary in my biz….sometimes it’s shiny, happy people having fun on behalf of the tourism industry.

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I say this without apology as I enjoy the challenges of commercial work, and I appreciate the patronage of clients like Philadelphia tourism who have helped me pay my mortgage and educate my kids….but I digress. Why does this lovely couple look sparkly and yet are not squinting? There’s bright, harsh, late afternoon sun all around them.

It’s from a shoot at a winery in the Philly area. And I don’t just have this couple to photograph. No, Philly is an inclusive place, so when you do a shoot like this, you’ve got a half dozen couples of all ages, ethnicities, and lifestyle preferences. You shoot one couple, pull ‘em out, and then insert the next demographic. It’s a buzz to say the least. So you’ve got to have quick simple setups that solve problems….like harsh sunlight on happy faces.

Epson’s “secret” killer feature…

Destinations,Photo Gear,Photo Techniques — April 10, 2009

Laptop-free travel is a dream of a lot of us who want to lighten our loads. One of the things that a lot of columnists and writers point to as alternatives are the multimedia storage storage devices like the Epson P6000/P7000.

photo by LetsGoDigital.com

These are phenomenal little units, and I carry one along even when I have a laptop as a backup. But carrying one of these units in lieu of a laptop isn’t really going to help you as redundant backup unless you do one of three things:

Don’t re-use your cards during the trip, so you’ve got a copy of your “take” on the Epson and a copy on the cards.
Buy two Epsons (!) so you have your redundant backup. It’s an elegant, if somewhat expensive, solution.

For the third, most reasonable, and totally undercovered solution in almost every review and Epson marketing piece of these multimedia storage units, hit the next page. Read more…

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