Photo Traveler

Bob Krist’s Travel Photography Blog

If the NRA taught travel photography….

Ironies,Photo Gear,Photo Techniques,Travel,Workshops & Seminars — August 27, 2010

Don't click this, it's just a screen grab!

….they couldn’t do any better than Geographic shooters, and all around wags, Cary Wolinsky and Bob Caputo did in this short piece. Talk about being shot out of a cannon (that’s cannon with two “n’s”), they launched their new blog, Pix Boom Bah, with this wacky video.

The site looks like a place where humor and high production values will help teach basic photography concepts, served up by these two veteran Geographic shooters (and fledgling standup comedians!). Finally, photography has its own mini Monty Python troupe!

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Nevada’s Wisdom, Where’s Jim, Stephen’s High Jinx, Joe’s Swami….

Career issues,Destinations,Photo Gear,Photo Techniques,Travel — August 24, 2010

Some of my friends and colleagues have been sharing some great information lately.

Nevada Weir, adventure travel photographer extraordinaire, shares a great post: The 10 things she wished she knew before becoming a professional travel photographer and the 10 things she’s glad she knew. Take number three in the “glad she knew” category:

I knew that I had some great traits for a traveler: I can handle alcohol; I can sleep anywhere; I have an “iron stomach”; I have a bad sense of smell; and I remain very calm in times of stress or uncertainty. All very useful for the solo traveler.

Funnily enough, I have all those same traits (especially the alcohol-holding abilities) EXCEPT that I do go to pieces in times of stress and uncertainty….but I’m working on it, sometimes even without the alcohol part!

To find out where Jim Richardson has been parking his fedora,why Stephen Alvarez craves getting high above all things, and why Joe McNally won’t confess to a swami, hit the jump. Read more…

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Wide and Tight

Destinations,Photo Gear,Photo Techniques,Travel — August 17, 2010

Photo © Bob Krist

Tech info: D90, 18-200mm

One of my favorite ways to use a wideangle is to move in really tight on a subject, getting as close as I can to it (without being pecked, kicked, slapped or arrested) and have it fill one side of the frame, while letting the background fill the rest.

It’s a great way to create a strong, storytelling picture of inanimate objects or people (or roosters). You just have to be careful, with people, not to get so close that you distort their features (unless you want to).

Here’s another example, using one of the Gorgon heads at Magnis Lepta in Libya as an anchor for the composition:

Photo © Bob Krist

Tech: D70, 12-24mm

Or this shot of the Place of Refuge on the Big Island:

Photo © Bob Krist

Tech: D80, 12-24

Most of the time, the side of the frame I place the subject on depends on which way he, she, or it is looking. You always (well, almost always) want the subject looking into the frame (don’t ask me why, it just feels right).

For the Hawaii shot, it was a gray afternoon, and it wasn’t twilight yet, so I set the WB to tungsten, orange gelled my SB 800 flash (which was being held by my brother Gary, who was the writer on the piece, and fired through my little portable handheld umbrella system). I underexposed the background by about 2 stops and ramped up the flash till it looked right.

So move on in with the wide angle for stronger compositions….but be careful not to ruffle any feathers!

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New and Old Friends

Career issues,Destinations,Lighting,Photo Gear,Photo Techniques,Technology,Travel,Workshops & Seminars — July 30, 2010

I’ve had the distinct pleasure of catching up with some old friends, and meeting some new colleagues, on a couple of projects I’ve been working on these last few weeks. I’ve learned a lot from these guys and I recommend hitting their websites/blogs for some excellent inspiration and instruction.

Reznicki Rules–I’ve known Jack Reznicki for years and long admired his people photography, but I had never heard him speak until I caught him at a recent conference. Wow, his talk was funny, informative, and just loaded with terrific images! He is one of those rare shooters who not only makes great pictures, but he’s able to break it down and teach the process as well. His books and website are highly recommended. http://www.reznicki.com/

Dynamite Dave–Veteran sports shooter and speedlight maven Dave Black is a delightful guy, major talent, and great teacher. He regularly runs “Workshops at the Ranch” which are always popular. I had a chance to watch Dave at work recently. Although Dave is famous for his sports photos (and rightfully so) I love his feature work and the stuff he’s done with lightpainting and speedlights, especially at Arlington National Cemetery….haunting and beautiful. http://www.daveblackphotography.com/

Corey is Cookin’–I also recently met Corey Rich , and he is a one man visual dynamo as well as an articulate teacher. Long known for his outstanding adventure and extreme sports photography, Corey has made the transition to video and has made it with a bang. I admire him not only for his eye, but for what he’s had to climb (hint: El Capitan, for one) to get that eye in the right place at the right time! http://www.coreyrich.com/

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In Praise of Pea Soup

Destinations,Photo Gear,Photo Techniques,Travel,Workshops & Seminars,multimedia — July 19, 2010

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Wicked Good Workshop Week in Maine

Destinations,Photo Techniques,Travel,Workshops & Seminars — July 10, 2010

Photo © Lottie Hedley

Just finished up my annual Maine Media Workshop class, called “Digital Travel Photography: A Sense of Place,” and it was a great week. I had 13 diverse and talented students from as far away as New Zealand, and by day two, we all felt like family.

Everyone was pushed beyond their relative comfort zones in photography and broke new ground in their development as visual storytellers. I learned as much as the students did, and went away envying their talent and great eyes.

I’ve been teaching up here for about 20 years now, and it never ceases to amaze me how students can surprise me in a place I know like the back of my hand.

So hit the jump for a gallery of the student’s work, including the above shot of Marshall Point lighthouse from our Kiwi classmate, Lottie Hedley. Read more…

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The Road is Truth

Career issues,Destinations,Photo Gear,Photo Techniques,Travel — June 19, 2010

Somewhere near Mexican Hat, Utah.....

Ah, the lengths we go to to gain inspiration on an assignment. Whether it’s staying out even though the skies are cloudy and pouring rain, or channeling Navajo spirits near Monument Valley, the wise shooter will leave no stone unturned in the quest for the photographic Holy Grail, a great picture.

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to share the results of this shoot in the Four Corners until the publication drops in late September. But in the meantime, I can share with you some valuable truths I learned (or actually re-learned).

One of the immutable truths of good travel photography is to find knowledgeable local help…folks who know the area well and can help you make interesting pictures. To that end, here are a few folks who helped me out bigtime on the assignment.

If you want to beat the crowds and the forest of tripods at the famous Antelope Canyon, the popular slot canyon, try visiting another, slightly smaller but no less spectacular slot canyon located on private property and solely accessed by the folks at Overland Canyon Tours.

These small private tours give you plenty of time to explore the rooms, with few, if any, other shooters getting in your way. If you get Charley, the owner, as your guide, you’ll even get expert photographic advice and a great stories to boot.

For touring Lake Powell, contact Steve Carrothers at Antelope Point Lake Powell marina. Steve can set you up with a comfortable boat and captain who will take you to some spectacular places to see and photograph beautiful Lake Powell.

And if you want an insider’s view of Monument Valley, try Harold Simpson’s Monument Valley Trailhandler Tours. Owned and operated by Navajo people, the sunrise and sunset photography tours will put you in the right places at the right times to do justice to this magnifcent landscape.

Ask for Richard Frank as your guide, and be prepared to be blown away by his portfolio of stunning photography shot on his little Sanyo Xacti hybrid still/video camera.

Richard’s work proves once again that being out there day in and day out is worth more than all the expensive photo gear in the world when it comes to capturing magic moments!

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Bokeh in a Box

Photo Gear,Photo Techniques,Technology — June 4, 2010

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Ordinarily, my clients don’t let me mess with reality, but I had a shoot last weekend for the Arthritis Foundation‘s annual report cover that was clearly considered to be a “photo illustration,” and as such, I had more than the normal leeway.

The AD wanted a shot of a remarkable guy named David who cycled across country to raise money for the foundation, despite the fact that he’s pretty heavily laden with arthritis. And the concept was to get him moving along on his bike—trying to keep him sharp but getting a sense of movement to the rest of the shot.

So we popped open the trunk of my car and I got in, rigged up an SB800 on the lid, put my trusty 20-year-old KenLab KS 6 gyro stabilizer under the D300s and 24-70mmf/2.8, and had David trail the car (which was piloted by my good buddy, photographer Jerry Millevoi) at upwards of 20 miles an hour down a country road near New Hope. I tried a variety of shutter speeds, some resulting in very dramatic blurs, but for the cover purposes, just the hint of movement seemed to do the trick.

The 1/30th of second shutter speed picked up a nice bit of blur, the flash froze David (an excellent and fearless cyclist who tracked the car without breaking a sweat!), and the shot worked nicely. But the trees and the road behind him didn’t fall off a lot because we were down at f/11 or thereabouts. So if you wanted to run a cover headline and cutlines, the foliage would be pretty defined and distracting. But how to soften that background after the fact?

Cue the software cavalry…

Aaand bingo! A program called Bokeh, from Alien Skin, comes riding to the rescue. Hit the jump to find out how. Read more…

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Jumping through Hoops

Photo Gear,Photo Techniques,multimedia — May 20, 2010

I’m just in the process of ordering the big (up to 30″x45″) prints for my community portrait project, called New Hope: In Character. I’m working with the great folks at Aspen Creek Photo and West Coast Imaging to do the printing, and I’ll be writing about them soon.

Our exhibit will be up for the last two weeks in August at the New Hope Arts Center, and it’s going to culminate in a big street party outside the center where we bring the prints outside (more on that as the time approaches).

Of the fifty-plus of my neighbors that I photographed, only two pictures will run in color. One of them is of Rachelle, a young lady who went to school with my sons and is currently a professional dancer. One of her specialties is the hoop dance, with a hoop that has built in LED lighting.

It’s just too cool to see her do her thing, and to capture the movement of the lighted hoop, plus Rachelle, we did some slow synch flash, using the same basic broad light I’ve discussed before (see the jump for a picture of the studio setup).

But we turned off the overhead lights and blackened out the windows and went for a long (1/2 second) exposure in the dark, and then the strobe fired to provide the light on her.

It’s a dynamic look, and when I was cycling quickly through the shots in Photo Mechanic to pick the one frame to print, it had a kind of flipbook effect. So I grabbed all the jpegs from the session and made the timelapse in Quicktime that you see above.

For a look at the studio setup (one 4×6 softbox at a 45 degree angle, basically), hit the jump. Read more…

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Friends in High Places

Career issues,Destinations,Ironies,Lighting,Photo Gear,Photo Techniques,Travel — May 15, 2010

I’m just putting together a stock submission of images from Buenos Aires for a European magazine client when I came across the above pic of the Capitolio dome in Buenos Aires. It’s the seat of the government and notice how it’s nicely etched with light.

There’s a story behind that, and it’s another tale of who you know, not necessarily what you know.

My excellent friend and fixer, Bernardo Galmarini, knew the building manager of the Palacio Barolo building, an unbelievably beautiful art deco masterpiece from which we shot this view. It’s a work of art, and topped with a real working lighthouse complete with giant bulb and fresnel lens. That’s Bernando, below, checking his settings by the glow of the lighthouse.

For the story of how we lit the dome of the Argentinian parliament without bringing the country’s Air Force or the Secret Service down on our heads, hit the jump.