Photo Traveler

Bob Krist’s Travel Photography Blog

I was in the wrong place, but it must have been the right time….

Photo Gear,Photo Techniques,Travel,multimedia — June 29, 2009

Photo © Bob Krist

I love the pageantry of the horsey set, like four-in-hand carriage races and fox hunts (especially if the fox gets away), because these activities are just so downright photogenic. Recently, in my never-ending quest to improve my multimedia chops (in the hopes that someday, somewhere, a client will actually pay for this skill set!), I sent myself to the annual Point to Point race at Winterthur in the Brandywine to shoot and gather sound for an audio slide show.

There were a fair amount of guys there shooting seriously, with big motor drives and long, fast, glass. Ever since my early days on the staff of the Hudson Dispatch, I’ve always felt intimidated going to sporting events to shoot because, frankly, I don’t know much about sports and consequently, I’m pretty bad at shooting them!

Plus the fact that by the time I was able to afford those giant cameras and lenses, my back was too bad to carry them:-). But I managed to be the only guy to get this shot (both the horse and rider were okay). Hit the jump for the reason why. Read more…

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Chicago Blues

Destinations,Photo Gear,Photo Techniques,Travel,multimedia — June 25, 2009

photo © Bob Krist

I finished my audio slide show on blues clubs in Chicago , with a music bed I licensed from the great John Primer, seen above. I’ve put up the show on my website and linked it rather than post it here because I can show it in a larger window on my website. In the near future, it’ll also be running, in a smaller size, on National Geographic Traveler’s Intelligent Travel blog.

I learn something new with every show I put together…mostly, I’m learning how hard it is to get good pictures and good audio. And how hard it is to get non-professional speakers (that is, people who aren’t politicians) to speak in sound bites rather normal (i.e. “far-ranging”) conversations.

I had two wonderful, knowledgeable narrators in Barry Dolins, director of the Chicago Blues festival, and Buddy Guy, the legendary bluesman who carved out a 10 minute time slot for me on the night that Koko Taylor died, even though he was inundated at his club by Chicago and national media who wanted his take on the loss of another Chicago blues legend. So many of their insights had to get cut, and another bluesman’s interview got cut altogether….oh audio editing, you are such a cruel master.

But I was encouraged, as a DX format D90-shooter, how much I could get away with at ISO 1600 with an 85mm f/1.8 Nikkor and a 30mm f/1.4 Sigma. Yes, I sure could have used a D700 or D3‘s ISO 6400 magic, but my gear is lighter, cheaper and less obvious (and that latter quality can be important when you’re hanging out in juke joints way in the outskirts of Chicago in the middle of the night! I was wishing for the “invisible” mode here and there, but I don’t think either Canon or Nikon is working on that feature).

Soundslides Plus , and its creator Joe Weiss, continue to be a joy to work with, although I notice that now iMovie 09 and the latest version of Fotomagico both allow the integration of stills and movie clips in their slideshows. This is a feature that all multimedia journalists will need (and Final Cut Pro and Express both facilitate), but after my first few forays into video, I’m happy just to be doing stills and audio at the moment….if I have to add video, I think I need to grow a second head and a couple more arms!

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Who knows where the time goes….

Career issues — June 21, 2009

Photo © Bob Krist

UPDATE: It’s ironic that this post runs on the day that Kodak announced the death of Kodachrome. Yes, that old stalwart is no more. Alas, we knew you well. R.I.P.

My head is just chock full of useless trivia, like vintage song titles that make great blog entry headlines. But there is someone else, besides Sandy Denny and Judy Collins , “Who Knows Where the Time Goes.”

He’s a photographer named George Remington from Cleveland, Ohio and he compiled a list that more or less sums up the reasons why our lives are being sucked down the twittering rabbit holes of the info-cloud and the eternal, unending, everlasting upgrade shuffle.

So if you’re wondering why you’re working harder but getting a lot less done (and a lot less billed!) make a mental note of how long it takes you to reach the bottom of the list, and you may lament, as I do, how many days pass without ever making it down to those two last items, despite all the conveniences of our new digital reality.

(BTW, the watch illustration is a shot I did for Nikon’s “Hands on Guide to Creative Lighting” DVD using Nikon’s SB-R1C1 closeup Speedlight setup…a nifty little “piece of kit,” as the Brits would say.)

So, hit the jump for the list that describes where my time, and probably yours, goes….

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Day for Night in Kyoto

Destinations,Lighting,Travel — June 17, 2009

Photo © Bob Krist

One of the better assignments I’ve had was to shoot a story on ryokan, the traditional inns of Japan. My brother Gary was the writer, and we got to crisscross the entire country and stay at a variety of inns from the very fancy to the unelectrified rustic.

One thing the editors wanted was a sequence of shots, showing a Western couple checking in and going through the activities of a typical ryokan day (i.e. you take a bath, have tea, eat dinner, and then go to sleep…the latter three all in the same room!)

We couldn’t afford pro models, but our fixer found a very nice, attractive young couple who were teaching English nearby and were agreeable to pose…but they only had two hours on a Saturday afternoon between 3-5pm to do it! They couldn’t stick around for the “futon” shot.

It was looking like we might have to sacrifice that night shot for a while there, but fortunately, I had a complete battery-operated flash setup with me…five units with stands, gels, radios the works.

To see how we made day into night, hit the jump.

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Google: Oh go ahead, be evil; you know you want to…

Career issues,Ironies — June 15, 2009

Google, the info-cloud juggernaut, has just pulled the classic ruse of every company seeking art for free by soliciting well-known illustrators to contribute work to the “skins” of the company’s new web browser for “exposure.” No money, just “exposure.”

This is a familiar ploy to anybody in our business, usually coming from two-bit outfits scrambling to survive, or just plain unscrupulous concerns who know they can take advantage of artists with the promise of “exposure” or “links.”

My stock answer to these requests is usually something along the lines of “when my supermarket accepts links for food, and my bank accepts exposure on my website for mortgage payments, I will be happy to provide my work to you on the same terms.”

According to the NY Times, a lot of illustrators are refusing the offer and complaining loudly. Let’s stand behind our brush-and-pencil-wielding brethren. I might actually try Microsoft’s new search engine (hmmm, out of the frying pan, into the fire???).

This behavior, by the way, comes from a company that is making hundreds of billions of dollars and whose unofficial slogan is “Don’t Be Evil.” Oh, pass me that well-used cup of cynicism, so that I may take another deep drink….

According to Wikipedia, Google’s unofficial company motto, Don’t Be Evil, came about this way:

“Don’t be evil” is the informal corporate motto (or slogan) of Google, originally suggested by Google employees Paul Buchheit and Amit Pate at a meeting. Buchheit, the creator of Gmail, said he “wanted something that, once you put it in there, would be hard to take out,” adding that the slogan was “also a bit of a jab at a lot of the other companies, especially our competitors, who at the time, in our opinion, were kind of exploiting the users to some extent.”

“Don’t be evil” is said to recognize that large corporations often maximize short-term profits with actions that destroy long-term brand image and competitive position. Supposedly, by installing a Don’t Be Evil culture the corporation establishes a baseline for decision making that can enhance the trust and image of the corporation that outweighs short-term gains from violating the Don’t Be Evil principles.

So soon they forget….

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It’s black and white, but will it be read all over?

Photo Techniques,Travel — June 12, 2009

Photo © Bob Krist

For the last six or seven years, I’ve done a large calendar of images from around the world. We use them as promotional mailings for me, and as gifts for donors to the Jonathan Krist Foundation . I usually look for bright, saturated iconic images from my travels, and my printer does an excellent job with reproducing those colors on thick glossy paper. It’s a fairly expensive promotion piece, but it goes over big.

This year, I’m thinking of doing something different. A while ago, I got an old D70 body converted for black and white infrared by the folks at Lifepixel and I’ve had a blast using it in a variety of locations all over the world. It’s gotten to the point where I have a decent collection of black and white travel images, like the one of the Easter Island moai above.

The question I’m asking myself (and I have to decide soon because time, as well as a calendar deadline, waits for no man) is “would these images work in a calendar?” I’m waiting for one thing to help me make up my mind. Read more…

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Speedlinks 6/10/09

Destinations,Ironies,Photo Techniques,Travel — June 9, 2009

If you’ve been in the business for a while, or if you’re trying to break in and wonder why the veterans in the biz all seem so, well, shell shocked, Austin-based people photographer Kirk Tuck gives a cogent analysis and some uplifting advice here.

So if you’ve been in the business for a while, and have, say, 100,000 slides to scan, but not $700,000 to have them drummed, check out Slide Scanning Pros . Based in the Pacific Northwest, they use the Nikon Coolscan, and they are damned good at it, and they charge $.26 a slide and that includes rotating, cropping that annoying black border and removing blemishes and dust with Digital Ice. They do the scanning in country, and are very pleasant and efficient to deal with. The Slide Scanning Pros are inordinately fond of the PNG format, so if you want your stuff returned as Tiffs, make sure you specify that in your order.

So, let’s keep up with this “you’ve been in the business for a while” theme and let’s say you’re sick of reading all this how-to and would like to be reminded of why you travel and make photographs, then by all means pick up Within the Frame: The Journey of Photographic Vision by Canadian shooter David duChemin. David shoots for a lot of humanitarian organizations so his travel photography is done with a purpose, and his thoughtful analysis of the craft concentrates more on the bigger questions and less on the nuts and bolts. It’s a refreshing read, it dovetails nicely with Kirk Tuck’s article above, and it’s filled with excellent imagery.

Uplifting is uplifting, but I’d have to hand in my charter membership card to the Cynical Old Bastards club if I didn’t point out this article about a young photographer courtesy of that bastion of withering irony, The Onion.

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My kind of town…

Destinations,Photo Techniques,Travel — June 7, 2009

I’m just finishing up a 9 day shoot in Chicago and all I can say, with apologies to The Chairman of the Board, is that this is my kind of town too. I feel just about as good as Pistol Pete does in the above snap. Pete is a Chicago guitarist who, I swear, channels more Hendrix than Albert King during his gigs at clubs like B.L.U.E.S.

Spectacular architecture, rich culture, great food, and friendly, really friendly people; why, here, even the Public Relations people treat photographers with respect and they even try to help you do your job instead of telling why you can’t.

Now if you’re not in the travel photo biz, that last statement might be puzzling. Aren’t PR people supposed to help promote their attractions? Not always. In fact, many PR folk will offer more support for Aunt Minnie and Uncle Joe, the septuagenarian travel writing duo from the Podunk Weekly shopper, than a photographer from a national magazine or major agency. Why? Hit the jump for my theory.

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I could just shoot myself….

Ironies,Lighting,Photo Gear,Photo Techniques — June 4, 2009

photo by Peggy Krist

I was recently contacted by Bucks Life magazine, the large-format swanky lifestyle magazine that covers all things interesting in Bucks County, our little artsy, funky corner of Pennsylvania. They were doing an article highlighting some local art luminaries, and they wanted to include me?

Well, I didn’t argue, but they said they’d send a photographer and I said, “wait, I’m a photographer, let me shoot some luminaries for you.” (I can hear you now, marveling at my marketing acumen and self-promotion chutzpah). We negotiated and I walked away with an assignment to shoot 4 luminaries and 1 dimbulb, me.

So I duded up in my best Joe Photog outfit, and invited my old buddy and super people-shooter Pete Byron for lunch (we’re both May birthday boys and always have lunch around our natal days). I was going to shoot the thing myself with Pocket Wizards, but why waste 25 years of friendship and a great eye behind the camera, especially if you can get him for a chicken salad ?

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