Photo Traveler

Bob Krist’s Travel Photography Blog

Your rights are Burning, Man!

Destinations,Events,Ironies,Legal Issues,Travel,multimedia — August 30, 2009

Sorry, to be safe, no photo can go here!

So, it’s late August, and you wanna go to Burning Man; that yearly counterculture blowout and paean to, I dunno, free love and the Woodstock nation? You’re gonna maybe take some pictures, do a video or an audio slideshow that will put you on the map as a sensitive documentarian of contemporary counterculture?

So maybe, in 40 years, they’ll be using your images on the PBS Burning Man anniversary special (directed by Ken Burns, Jr.)?

Think again, my friend.

This event may masquerade as a celebration of “la vie boheme,” but they want to restrict your rights as a photographer just like the big money-making events run by the NFL and rock stars. Only difference is, those latter two don’t pretend to be anything but money making operations…(well, maybe some of the rockbands do, but certainly not the NFL.)

Here are the terms and conditions of attending BM:

“I UNDERSTAND AND ACCEPT THAT NO USE OF IMAGES, FILM, OR VIDEO OBTAINED AT THE EVENT MAY BE MADE WITHOUT PRIOR WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM BURNING MAN, OTHER THAN PERSONAL USE. I understand that I have no rights to make any non-personal use of any image, film, or video footage obtained at the event, and that I cannot sell, transfer, or give the footage or completed film or video to any other party, except for personal use, and I agree to inform anyone to whom I give any footage, film, or video that it can only be used for personal use.
I acknowledge that the Burning Man name and logo are the property of the Burning Man organization, and I understand that the Burning Man organization controls all rights regarding the licensing and reproduction of any imagery recorded at the event . I agree that I will not use the mark or logo of Burning Man or likeness of the Man on any website or in any commercial manner.”

Here’s an interesting analysis of how this rights grab is pulled off by using a loophole in the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA).

I had an 8 paragraph rant about this, to run after a jump. But in an uncommon fit of discretion, it was redacted by the superego department. Needless to say, the id department is up in arms, and I expect some tough times ahead for the ego department, who had to negotiate this settlement…..Oy, these voices in my head! I wish they would all shut up!

As always, to get a cogent perspective (rather than my incoherent rants) on any legal issue regarding photography, visit my friend Carolyn Wright’s site, The Photo Attorney, or buy her book, Photographer’s Legal Guide.

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Give the drummer some….

Lighting,Photo Gear,Photo Techniques — August 27, 2009

Photo © Bob Krist

My friend Tim gave me a call the other day…he needed some new shots for his website and promo material, and would I be interested? You betcha! As James Brown used to say, you got to “give the drummer some!”

Tim is a great drummer and educator and I first met him in conjunction with a project he volunteered for through auspices of the Jonathan Krist Foundation. Tim spends a lot of time working with young guys in Trenton, making them better drummers and keeping them out of trouble.

Photo © Bob Krist

We decided to do this in my cavernous, dirty, dank garage high tech home studio, and started with a pretty straightforward portrait with a couple of his congas.

I didn’t go Strobist on this, deciding instead to use my old DynaLites, the great, compact AC strobe system I used day in and day out during my annual report shooting days.

The units have to be about 20 years old, and these days, they don’t see much use, but when you need ‘em, they’re there, compact and dependable as ever.

Simple light, as always. One head into a 3×4 Chimera lightbox from camera left, and a head with a grid spot hitting the background from the floor. Not even a white fill card on the shadow side.

We got our “safe” shots and then Tim, who played football at school in Tennessee and looks like he still could tear through a defensive line, jumped into a dashiki and pulled out his African drums.

When he started playing, you could feel the power and energy, so we decided to go for a little more dramatic light. This time, we’d have the light coming from overhead.

To see how it evolved into the above shot, take a look at some other shots from the session, and grab a peek at my drive-in disaster area swanky studio setup, hit the jump.

Don’t cry for me, Argentina…I’ll do that myself…

Travel — August 22, 2009

…but if you know a great fixer, I’ll stop sobbing.

I’ve got a gig coming up in early October in Buenos Aires, Argentina and I’m looking for a fixer/translator/guide type of person to help since my Spanish is really bad non-existent, and the assignment calls for a lot of phone calling and permission seeking.

The ideal candidate will be friendly, speak English, be a resident of BsAs, and hopefully a little familiar with photography. But a good tour guide type of person with patience, initiative, and a strong back would also suffice.

I’ve got a couple of irons in the fire, but do drop me an email if you have any leads. Thanks, Bob

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Don’t neglect to reflect….

Lighting,Photo Gear,Photo Techniques,Travel —

Photo © Bob Krist

Regular readers of my column and blog know that I love my little Nikon speedlights for all the wonderful things they do so effortlessly. From fill flash, to slow synch to cordless off camera TTL control, these units have changed the way I work and have made me a flash maven.

But there are some contrasty situations where my first choice will be a reflector, usually one of the pop-open types like the Flexfill or Photoflex or Lastolite. What are those situations and why do I like to use a reflector instead of flash when I encounter them? Hit the jump to find out.

Reflections of a Road Warrior

Career issues,Destinations,Ironies,Travel — August 18, 2009

Photo © Bob Krist

As one existential wag put it: “the only vehicle suited to the road is truth”. So, here are a few Truths from the Road, as I saw it during our three-week, 4,461-mile sweep of the West.

–If you’re going to spend more than a week anyplace, consider renting your car from the company’s downtown office rather than the airport. You’ll save a bundle. On this trip, we saved about 55% off the airport rate by taking a $50 taxi into downtown Denver and doing the three week rental from that office rather than the airport. On the return, with Peggy pleading sweetly on the cell phone, they let us drop the car at the airport anyway, with no penalty or foul. Total savings? Close to $1000!

–GPS units are a godsend. BUT, if you travel with a spouse/significant other who considers him or herself to be a navigator, try to take in the bigger picture. True, one of these methods is virtually infallible, and the other only thinks she is. But remember, it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey.

Who cares if it takes another few hours, or days, to get where you’re going….especially if it helps your relationship last longer too? (Of course, if making your relationship last longer is NOT a desired result, then tell your spouse or significant other to cram it and surrender to the sweet, satellite-guided sounds of Garmin, Tom-Tom or whomever.)

–If you don’t think our country’s infrastructure is in trouble, look at what passes for a rest stop (in above photo)…. Okay, in the spirit of full disclosure, this is not a real rest stop, just one farmer’s idea of a joke.

Of course, if said farmer were an artist and, say, wore a beret, went by one name, spoke with a delicious foreign accent, and sent the above creation to an art museum, it would be an installation. An installation that is decrying, of course, the pitiful state of our country’s infrastructure.

But, rest assured, this guy is no Christo, and I’m no Avedon, and so this is just a fun picture to wrap up a great road trip….

Photo © Bob Krist

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The Little Light That Could…

Destinations,Lighting,Photo Gear,Photo Techniques,Travel — August 13, 2009

Photo © Bob Krist

We’re in the homestretch and what better way to wrap up a road trip than in a car graveyard…but not just any graveyard, the inimitable Carhenge in western Nebraska. Based on the slightly older, all rock Stonehenge on the plains of south England, this wonderful sculpture came to be as a memorial for a family member during a farm family reunion in Nebraska.

I originally wanted to lightpaint this at twilight with a million candlepower flashlight I brought with me. Somehow, though, when Peggy and I finally got here, our cheapo giant flashlight had totally lost its charge from the day before. What to do? The twilight was fading, and I had only one other light with me, a little ole SB 900. To read how we worked with the little light that could, plus a look at some black and white infrared panos of the site, hit the jump. Read more…

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Scale Studies in South Dakota

Career issues,Destinations,Ironies,Photo Gear,Photo Techniques,Travel — August 9, 2009

Photo © Bob Krist

Catching an occasional break, weather and luck-wise, in South Dakota. The morning was totally socked in with fog when we arrived at Mt. Rushmore. Caught the movie, looked outside and saw it clearing. Before the fog decided to resettle, I raced around and shot the bejesus out of the famous 60-foot-high heads in color and B&W from a number of angles.

I had just ascertained from a ranger that there is only one week in September when they go up to do maintenance on the faces. I always wanted to get one of those “scale reference” pix of a little guy hanging by his harness on a big nose or ear.

Oddly, that same ranger neglected to let me know that a couple of his colleagues were going up that morning (not to hang from the face, but for a quick look at a monitor on top of the heads).

I just caught the sight of the little ranger on the big head as we were leaving, and managed to knock off a few frames before they disappeared. The place was crawling with Sturgis-bound bikers, and before I left, I made friends with Jeff and tried a different scale perspective to get the noble biker in a presidential pose.

Jeff was into it, and obliged. I have to say that it’s a kinder, gentler breed of bikers here than I encountered 30 years ago when I was a newspaper shooter. Then, I did a picture story on a gang of outlaw bikers, (I think it was a chapter of the Pagans, but I don’t remember for sure) with a clubhouse in lower Jersey City (in a dive neighborhood that is now filled with the multimillion dollar brownstones of financial district yuppies).

I was doing a portrait of the leader Tony with his shotgun, standing in front of a very politically incorrect flag in the meeting room of the building, when the clubhouse facade was raked with automatic weapon fire in a drive-by, and we all hit the floor. Needless to say, the portrait session was over and the gang and I scarpered out of there before the police came to investigate.

Just one of the many reasons I got out of news photography while the getting was good and I was still in one piece!

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Close encounters of the high pressure kind…

Destinations,Events,Photo Gear,Photo Techniques,Travel — August 7, 2009

Moving southeast, we’re encountering two things: better weather, and lots of motorcycles. And all those do-ragged, bulging biceped, middle aged outlaws can mean only one of two things: we’ve stumbled onto a huge convention of Hulk Hogan impersonators, or we’re in the throes of famous Sturgis Motorcycle Rally!

We were told to avoid the Devils Tower National Monument today because it was Ham and Jam day in Hulett, when all the bikers converge on Hulett, right next to the distinctive monument, and more or less jam the place up. Well, there were thousands of them, but there was plenty of room to drive and hike around the monolith made famous in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

But these bikers are friendly and so-far, well behaved traveling companions, and I didn’t want to miss today’s spectacular cloudage around the Tower. I’ve been shooting black and white infrared almost exclusively so far. Despite the lyrics of “Kodachrome,” on this trip at least, everything seems to look better in black and white (sorry, Paul Simon!). And I need some North American B&W scenics for my 2010 calendar.

I’ll be resuming some more instructional type posts as soon as I get home, so don’t let all this black and white belly-aching about the weather and such get you down!

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Having a bad air day

Destinations,Ironies,Photo Gear,Photo Techniques,Travel — August 4, 2009

If you wanted to create a purgatory for photographers, try this.

First take some of the most magnificent scenery in the country and plop it down into a park and call it, say, Glacier National Park. Then let a photographer drive in one evening and get a shot or two of that beauty just before the sun goes down, totally whetting his or her appetite for the next two days of blissful image making.

Then, overnight, create a high pressure temperature inversion and add smoke from several surrounding forest fires so said park is blanketed in gray smoggy air that makes a bad air day in Beijing look like a walk in the park.

Welcome, dear reader, to My Own Private Idaho, er, I mean Montana, of course. I get a teaser look at all this magnificence, and then bang! I’m lost in a gray haze that goes from dawn to dusk for the next two days.

It can really take the heart out of an East Coast shooter who hardly ever gets out this way. This weather is even defeating the haze penetration capabilities of my B&W infrared rig.

Of course, Peggy recommends just relaxing, enjoying nature, and being in the moment. Oh sure, that’s easy for a bodhisattva to say, but it’s cold comfort for us less-evolved, camera-carrying, sentient beings. Our idea of being in the moment is capturing it on the chip.

And yet, I’m trying; chanting mightily as we do the hikes, partially for enlightenment, but mostly for the bears, because it would really suck to get nailed by a bear and have no good pictures in the camera to leave behind!

On to Wyoming and the Dakotas….hoping for a break from the weather gods….or total enlightenment. I’ll take either one at this point!

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