Suwanee Starry Night: Four Photo Techniques

Stars march across moonless sky as lightening bugs paint green highlights last April. Image assembled utilizing the Star Trail Stacking method. View larger version.

While processing master files for submission to my stock agencies this week, I had fun creating variations of a favorite starry night photograph from my camping and kayaking trip to Suwanee River State Park in North Florida. I wrote about the April trip earlier. Which version do you like best?

Star Trail Stacking

In this basic night sky technique you take a number of still photographs where the stars are rendered as distinct points, and one by one in Photo Shop stack them one upon the other, the result being star trails as the earth turned during each time exposure. It's really not that complicated, as if I can do this, so can you! 

Process you time exposures to taste, convert to Tiff or Jpeg and place in a folder. This won't work with RAW images, BTW.

First download this cool and free action from Chris Schur and put on your desktop. Load it into your version of Photo Shop by clicking on the Actions Pallet upper right fly out menu > Load Actions. Then in Photo Shop on Tool Pallet set Background Color to Black. Create a blank all black image  File > New > set to exact size of your star photos > Background > Background Color.

With the all black file open,  File > Automate > Batch and choose your folder  > Play > the Star Trails action, and let it run.

The action places each photo on a layer, sets Blending Mode to Lighten, flattens, and repeats. Lighten allows just the brightest pixels to show through the stack.  

When I stacked five hours of star points the sky was just to bright, so many stars had trailed by over time. I experimented with less time, and the result above is from about 50 images taken over about a half hour.

From starry night sky to completely fogged in, 20 second time lapse movie created from 621 time exposures made over nearly six hours. iPhone & iPad version.

Time Lapse Movie

Among the many techniques available, the simplest is using Apple Quick Time Pro, about $30. File > Open Image Sequence > choose folder > sit back and let it run. There are options for choosing frame rate, codex and the like.

I use Premier Pro as I find it very simple also. Project Panel > Import or Double Click on grey > choose image folder > select the first photo > check Image Sequence box > OK. Premier very quickly brings in all the photos as an Image Sequence, which you simply place on your time line to be edited like any other video. 

BTW, photos in folder must be named sequentially for this to work. Somewhere I had managed to throw out one or more of my 621 stills, and the Image Sequence import would hang up. My eyes went buggy searching for the missing file, so finally in Light Room I made a Collection of the 621 images, and in that collection I renamed them 0001 to 0621 in the Library module. After Save Metadata to the exported folder, it worked!

I layered eight photographs on top of each other, painting away all but the lightening bug streaks on the top seven, revealing the distinct star points from one 30 second time exposure and all the bug fly bys over six hours. 

Photo Shop Layers

This is basic Photo Shop compositing technique, which I rarely use for journalistic ethics reasons, so readers may know a simpler way to do this. 

In Light Room's Library module, I chose the eight photos that had green streaks from lightening bugs flying during the 30 second time exposures, processed and placed them in a folder. I manually stacked them one on top of the other as separate layers, then turned visibility off for all but the bottom two layers. I clicked on the Layer Mask icon for layer two, choose Black as a foreground color, then a brush, and painted everything on the top layer away except the green streaks. Now I had the first photo's stars, trees and green, plus just the green of the second layer. After painting in the green for all layers, I flattened the stack and was done. 

During 30 second time exposure I painted my head lamp around fog shrouded forest.

Light Painting With Flash Light

The last technique was to fiddle around at 330 AM once the fog rolled in and obscured the sky, I simply took my head lamp and painted cross light onto the trees and moss while the shutter was open.

Travel Photo Tips: Moments Between The Notes

Kung Fu performers from world famous Songshan Shaolin Temple in Henan Province face off in decisive moment.

Yesterday I was complimented by a caller that the photographs on my web site were “so nice and ... so clear.” For a moment I wondered if praising my ability to get things in focus was really a compliment, as I had been at this game for a few decades, but then I remembered that often people find it difficult to articulate exactly why a photo works for them. “So clear” usually means “I get it!”.

 

Very orderly and quiet lunch room for young Kung Fu students at Wuseng Tuan Training Center, Shaolin Temple, Henan. Between the notes sips and sticks important.

For me the technical craft of focus, f-stops, composition, color and light intuitively blend into the moment when I trip the shutter and capture a unique story. The viewer doesn’t need to recognize my hidden steps to understand the photograph.

 

Vendor offers just spun cotton candy for waiting night time visitors in Pingyao, Shanxi.

 

In photographing people one of my favorite hidden steps is timing,  just the right moment so we, the viewers, connect human being to human being. The peak action of Kung Fu performers facing off, fists out and eye to eye is the interesting icing on the photo cake. We really feel the drama playing out on a far off Chinese mountain.

 

Frying rope bread called Mahua at shop spilling onto sidewalk, Pingyao, Shanxi. 

But sometimes the decisive moment is more subtle and more difficult to capture because I have to watch between the moments for just the right tilt of the chop stick or turn of the body.  I liken it to editing a good interview where the reflective pause is as important as the words on either side. The small moments between the major notes can tip the viewer over into “I get it!” and make the photograph “so clear”.

Quiet moment captures shoe repairman and customer sharing shady sidewalk with 

bicycle shop, Pingyao, Shanxi.

 

A year ago this month (first five blog posts here) I was traveling in China with friends where we were invited to exhibit at a municipal cultural center and we attended an international photography festival, with extensive travel in between. Yes China is exotic, the people fascinating and the politics meaningful. But by golly this trip was the toughest photographically of all my trips there. The weather was hot, the skies were pollution brown and we practically never had delicious light. And now I know why some regions we visited are not in the guide books ... nobody in their right mind should go there. But we had a great time meeting Chinese from all walks of life and made photos in spite of the challenges. 

Next week:  Travel Photo Tips: People Don’t Bite (Usually).

Tourists pause on Jinshanling section of the Great Wall, Beijing. Composition and light set stage for freezing people in moment.

Sounds Overheard: Saskatoon Saskatchewan

Just a couple of weeks after winter's ice melted on Dore Lake North of Saskatoon, summer's sun warms the waters off Eagle Island. All photos shot with Canon S100 point 'n shoot.

Field-recorded sounds of song birds, yakking raven, buzzing fly, water birds and far off loons are captured on this 1:15 recording. iPhone and iPad version. 

All the Canadians I met earlier this month were awfully nice and friendly, and I know they often vacation down here in Florida when the winters get to be 40 degrees below up north of the border. But do they chuckle at the sound of our Florida names, Miami, Okeechobee, Apalachicola or Boca Raton?  Translated to “Rat’s Mouth”, that last one even makes me smile.

While fishing a couple of weeks ago at Dore Lake, located north of Saskatoon ... giggle ... I just loved the sound of Saskatoon, and spoken with the province Saskatchewan, I enjoyed the geographical mouth full every time I said them out loud. 

For years my brother in law Jo had been telling me about his annual fishing trip, a group of 18 mostly men from the Colorado Springs area that have been making the 1250 mile trek for 29 years. Jo finally talked me into joining them this year, even though I hadn’t been fishing since I was a Boy Scout in Idaho. I flew to Colorado, and at 4 AM the next day we loaded up his Toyota Tundra CrewMax and headed out for Canada.

I guess I never really looked at a map before we left. We drove north through Colorado, across eastern Wyoming, to spend the night in Miles City, Montana. I had forgotten how wide and open the western United States is, mile upon mile of rolling grasslands, oil wells and on occasional town. As it was late Spring, everything was a pretty green. The next day we drove and drove, over Lewis and Clark’s Missouri River, crossing into  Saskatchewan where the border was a thin wire fence marching across wheat fields. In Saskatoon ... giggle ... we spent night two. Not there yet, as we couldn’t check into camp until Noon. So on day three, after a leisurely breakfast, we entered the boreal forest. Boreal forest? Are we in the neighborhood of the Arctic Circle? Are we there yet? Startling a bear rooting for tender greens, we finally reached the dead end of a 65 mile dirt road and emerged at Dore Lake Lodge.

I suddenly realized that this trip was the equivalent of asking some of my buddies to go fishing, we just need to drive from Miami to New York city over three days!

I soon found out why this crazy group of fishing buddies drive this far. The fishing was terrific! Within minutes of casting onto the lake I was reeling in Northern Pike as long as my arm. Throw ‘em back, I was told, that’s to small. Sure enough, bigger fish were out there, including some delicious walleye. Even though I didn’t win the $80 pot for the largest fish of the week, I caught fish every time, trolling the deeper holes or casting into the weeds, rain or shine. One of our group brought in, and then released, a 31 pound pike. Lots of 8 to 12 pound walleye. As we could only keep six fish each for the week, other than the ones we ate, it was catch and release all day long.

Jo was chief cook and his cabin was the mess hall where we gathered every evening for liquid refreshment and tall stories of monster fish which got away. Some of the crew were younger than me, including two teens, a very competitive brother and sister and their taxidermist dad. But most of the fishing buddies were long retired, a former Catholic priest, an ophthalmologist, weather scientist, accountant, long distance truck driver, a jet fighter pilot. A fun group with lots of stories. Did I mention the lying about big fish?

As I was the new guy, I steered away from the potential controversy of politics or religion, yet on the last night mentioned to a dinner companion my lifelong membership in one of the two major political parties. The genial white haired gentleman, who had spent hours in my boat teaching me the finer points of fishing, growled “If we had known that sooner, we would of cut you up for bait!”

Between spirited fish strikes, beaver and bald eagle sightings, I shot a few photos and recorded a little sound and soaked in Dore Lake’s wide open skies. Will I go back fishing next year? Definitely, but I just might fly to Saskatoon ... giggle ... and skip most of the drive.

Talking Picture Postcard - Suwannee River

Green lightening bug last week streaks across still frame from moonless sky time lapse, Nikon D 610, Nikkor 16 - 35 mm at widest end, 30 seconds at f 4.0, ASA 3200, no noise reduction.

It's 3:30 AM as I crawl out of my tent pitched along the Suwannee River at the Florida state park of the same name, and I'm groggily peering up through the trees searching for the bright stars that dotted the sky when I had entered my sleeping bag five hours earlier. But I don't see a thing in the dark.  Double checking that my glasses are on my face, I switch on my head lamp only to see hazy water droplets suspended in foggy air.

View 1:29 video on you iPhone or iPad.

As I stumble down the trail toward my camera I worry if my time lapse was completely obscured by the cold morning fog creeping amid the slash pine and live oaks. I soon hear the camera still clicking and am reassured by the green glowing lamp as images are written to the memory card.

With two 30-second time exposures taken every minute for the past five hours,  I held the review button down to quickly spin the individual still photographs across the screen, magically moving the stars along their orbits in the heavens. Wow, condensing hours into a few seconds, that's cool!

I turned the camera and head lamp off to toss my head way back and look up. I knew there was six feet of dangling Spanish Moss above me as I could feel it tickle my nose. But I couldn't see the moss, nor the trees nor beyond. I could only feel the wet fog on my face, and hear a thousand thousand croaking frogs way off along the flooded banks of the Suwannee . Wow, being out doors in the middle of the night is really cool too!

My plan was to kayak and explore the historic river and had driven the 435 miles from Miami due North to within a half hour of the Georgia state line and the Okefenokee Swamp, from which the Suwannee originates. Only problem was I didn't call ahead, I guess the dry season in South Florida is not necessarily the dry season up here. An unseasonably rainy winter had forced the river up to 15 feet above flood stage, to dangerous to paddle. 

No problem, though, I found lots of scenic country to photograph, natural sounds to record and the nearby Santa Fe river fed by springs, one of my best paddles ever. A great trip with enough to fill an entire post card, a Talking Picture Postcard for sure.

Talking Picture Postcard - Florida Keys Slow Time

On a moonless night last January, coconut palms are silhouetted against star filled sky at Bahia Honda State Park in the Florida Keys. With Nikon D610 30 seconds f 2.8 at ASA 1600. A series of similar time exposures at near by Sand Spur Beach were assembled into a time lapse making up the second half of the Talking Picture Postcard below.

The Florida Keys are a pretty magical place to visit, and I often become confused with the changing pace of time I experience on the island chain. Rushing down the highway from Miami my body struggles to slow down and relax. Gotta answer emails, gotta get to where I'm going. But by the time I make it below Marathon, about Mile Marker 40 or so, I'm looking off at the blue Atlantic from up high on the Seven Mile Bridge, the sun is shimmering off the wave tops, and I see a lone sail boat miles off at the edge of the Gulf Stream. 

Real time video captures a slow moving sailboat for 19 seconds, and then an hour long time lapse reveals stars rotating above the ocean at Bahia Honda State Park in this 36 second Talking Picture Postcard. Field-recorded natural sound captured nearby. iPhone & iPad link or if your receiving this by email.

That boat is barely moving, it's is so sloooooow, just a tiny triangle of sail on the horizon. Time seems to stand still. The Keys' magic dust is sprinkling down on me now, transforming my fast time to Keys time, slow time, time to take in all the sun and water and stars up in the pitch black sky. In a blink I find myself on the beach, long after sunset, hours from the moon rise, I'm soaking in all those pin pricks of light  I forgot even existed.

Time to write home about this time warp I'm experiencing, but not the fast way by posting to social media. I'll take the old fashioned way, I'll write on the back of a postcard a couple of lines, stick a stamp on it, scribble an address, and mail another Talking Picture Postcard.

Chinese Family, Friends & Selfies

As the end of the year catches up with me, I thought I'd wrap up with some miscellaneous candid street photographs from this Fall's trip to China. This selection captures a handful of the 1.3 billion Chinese ... urban, middle class citizens enjoying their children, parents, grand children, best buddies and close friends.

Mother and teen daughter walk arm in arm down busy Lianyungang shopping street in

Jiansu Province.

Son play attacks his father lakeside at the Emperor 's Palace Theme Park in Kaifeng, Henan Province.

 Baby and his grand mother discover high flying balloons at a city park in Kaifeng, Henan Province.

 

 Best buddies walk to lunch after morning of Kung Fu drills at the Weseng Tuan Training Center in Henan Province.

 

 A selfie records friends attending an evening outdoor music performance in Denfeng City, Henan Province.

Sounds Overheard: Smog, Muzak & Crickets

The 13 story tall Iron Pagoda of the Buddhist Youguo Temple dating from 1049 pierces the smoggy sky last September in Keifeng, Henan Province, China. 

 
Ambient sounds recorded in Iron Pagoda Park range from tranquil to chaotic: 0:00 gabbing tourists, 0:14 background music on loud speakers, 0:31 parakeets for sale,  0:46 children's train ride, 1:23 cooing while feeding pigeons, 1:40 grand children & grannies, 1:48 crickets compete with music in quiet corner. Direct link for iPhones & iPads or if receiving post via email.

One of the surprises of traveling off the beaten tourist track in China is finding authentic photographs and sounds in not so glamorous places, so as dawn broke over Keifeng in China’s Henan Province, I was excited to get going.

This being my eighth trip to China, I knew from experience that Sunday morning last September that I could stumble onto interesting people doing interesting things in colorful ways.

Once in Yunnan I left a history museum tour and discovered a bride and groom in full wedding regalia strolling through the park. A random turn off the highway led to Buddhist monks in Qinghai inviting me into their yak hair tent to listen to eight-foot-long horns. In Inner Mongolia I sipped warm horse milk inside a yurt and met Westernized tweens texting in bunny slippers. All these chance encounters made terrific memories.

Early morning exercises follow well worn track around trees in park surrounding the Iron Pagoda in Kaifeng, city of five million on the banks of the Yellow River.

This morning as the sun rose it feebly punched through the thick gray smog. Buildings across a four lane street were obscured, and it was hot and humid too. Ugh, I thought as I optimistically entered the park surrounding a temple. There had to be a picture here in spite of the horrible light. There had to be sounds of everyday life here somewhere.

Yes and yes, within minutes I found both,  photographs and ambient sounds depicting off the beaten path China. Maybe not as colorful or glamorous as my other Chinese experiences, but authentic enough for another terrific memory.

During my assignments and travels I've been recording the sounds I overhear, and many don't have supporting photographs or stories. This occasional series will be my excuse to share my audio orphans, these Sounds Overheard.

12,000 Kung Fu Children

The 12,000 young boys and girls kicked and thrust, their shouted responses echoed from the tall dormitories and off the concrete drill field as their instructor’s Chinese commands squawked from loud speakers. Kung Fu movements in unison as far as I could see, the children and teens were in endless formations radiating in all directions like corn blowing in the wind.

iPhone & iPad friendly version or if you've received via e-mail. Listen to 1:30 of field-recorded sound and watch still photographs from Weseng Tuan Training Center in September, associated with legendary warrior monks of China's Shaolin Temple. 

In September I was visiting the Weseng Tuan Training Center on the same day as picture day, and this being China, picture day was a BIG deal. Mr. Qin Hua was eight stores up with his Nikon to capture the assembled thousands in a grand panoramic view. I opted for a view from ground level.

The school is closely associated with the Shaolin Temple at Song Mountain in China’s central Henan Province. The temple’s legendary warrior monks date from the chaotic politics of the sixth century, when the emperor awarded favors to Buddhists with fighting skills. For centuries many martial arts traditions flourished as trade and religion between China and India flowed, with the Shaolin form of Kung Fu becoming the most prominent.

 

After just three months at boarding school, five-year-old demonstrates Kung Fu moves. 

From Wikipedia:

Kung Fu is a Chinese term referring to any study, learning, or practice that requires patience, energy and time to complete, often used in the West to refer to Chinese martial arts ... Originally to practice Kung Fu did not just mean to practice Chinese martial arts. It refers to excellence achieved through long practice in any endeavor. 

Today this blending of hand to hand fighting with Buddhist ideology continues to embrace self-defense, body-building and athletics, with Kung Fu becoming a world wide personal philosophy and sport.

Tuition, room and board at the Wuseng Tuan school is around $ 4,800 a year, a considerable sum for a Chinese family in spite of the country’s recent economic growth. Besides good basic academic education, many students hope to join the military or work as body guards. There are thousands of Kung Fu schools throughout China, all competing for a piece of a very big business. Yet the day before I saw a group of a half a dozen English speaking twenty something men and women training one on one with a saffron robed monk in the nearby Shaolin Temple.

Photograph of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Shaolin Temple abbot is proudly displayed at the Wusen Tuan training center in Henan Province, China.

With the school enrolling 15,000 students, I was wondering where the other 3,000 were, as I had taken on face value their assertion of 12,000 Kung Fu children in front of me. Give or take a handful, seemed reasonable to me.

Just as I was about to ask, several accomplished five-year-olds were trotted out to perform for us. With just three months at the boarding school these cute tikes whipped through their foot kicking, hand chopping routine, climaxing with placing one foot behind their heads while standing perfectly still. Were the future generals of the People’s Liberation Army before me, standing like tall storks? With the world’s largest armed forces, China could always use one more Kung Fu practitioner.

Sounds Overheard: Pingyao's Chaotic Streets

 

At dusk the 14th century Market Tower rises from cobblestone streets teeming with people in the Ancient City of Ping Yao in China's Shanxi Province in September.

 0:00 traditional instruments, 0:14 bamboo flute, 0:32 swarms of people, 0:40 fire crackers, 0:49 street vendor, 1:01 toy rubber chicken seller, 1:15 outdoor wok, 1:30 police cart, 1:43 live bar music

iPhone & iPad friendly link, or if you've received an email without audio player.

Considering only pedestrians and pedal powered bicycles are allowed into the central core of the ancient walled city of Pingyao, an amazing tapestry of sound is generated in this city of 50,000. Not ear shattering New York City jack hammer and subway loud. But just as enveloping ... shouting vendors, crackling fireworks, banging gongs, sizzling woks, bicycle bells, conversations soft and shouted. Here sounds are every where, sharpening your senses, your eyes noticing more detail, your nose discovering new flavors wafting on the air.

As shop lights twinkle on, a young couple thread Pingyao's narrow streets last month. 

 When the magic hour arrives at dusk, the sky goes from deep blue to black and the red cloth lanterns twinkle on in the restaurants and shops, there is no quiet spot within these stone walls built over 500 years ago.

 It's due to the hordes of Chinese and foreign tourists and businesses catering to them. So many visitors flock to what are considered among the best preserved city walls in the world - Pingyao is a UNESCO World Heritage Site - that rampart tourism and development are considered a major threat.

Costumed musician plays bamboo flute below the South Gate in the 6,000 meter stone wall that encircles Pingyao, which is about 450 miles West and a little South of Beijing.

Don't let the crowds discourage your visit, there's lots of room. What fun being a fly on the wall among the throng, people watching, recording sound and taking photographs. If those pursuits aren't enough entertainment, then a $5.00 foot massage lasts almost an hour. At a street side table a large bottle of warm beer is 75 cents and great dinner of stir fried pork and eggplant a few dollars more. The pandemonium becomes background music

I never experienced a quiet and calm Pingyao. I suspect there's an hour when the nightly hubbub dims as the shops and bars close and visitors stroll off to bed. Probably when the sky brightness early in the morning the streets are momentarily quiet as the city regains it's strength, soon to murmur back to life.

Preparing Mahua, a friend dough twist cooked in peanut oil, on the sidewalk of the Zhauji family shop.

During my assignments and travels I've been recording the sounds I overhear, and many don't have supporting photographs or stories. Well, today there's a short story and a few pictures. This occasional series will be my excuse to share my audio orphans, these Sounds Overheard. 

Billions Of Chinese Phones Love Big Nose

On my September trip to China it seemed to me a large percentage of the country's 1.2 billion people were talking on their mobile phones, sending texts or surfing the internet. I saw the phones in the hands of parents commuting through traffic with children hanging off their electric scooters. In the country side I noted farmers chatting. While zooming at 200 Km per hour on a high speed train, fingers flew playing internet games. 

While wearing rented 17th century costumes boyfriend snaps mobile phone photos of girlfriend in Beijing's Forbidden City last month.

And the Chinese were snapping photos with their phones of everybody and everything. In the park with grandma and grandpa, tourists dressed in Qin dynasty costumes, pictures of photographs hanging at photography festivals. Even pictures of photographers standing in front of their photographs at photography festivals.

A recent report claimed that among the 1,200,000 citizens of China, there were 1,104,000 mobile phone users. Gee that seems high, even noting that maybe people have multiple handsets or SIM cards. But come to think about it, though, as a Westerner I must of had a cel phone camera pointed at me nearly a billion times.

 

While baby sleeps mother stays connected with smart phone while visiting the Longman Caves in Luoyang, Henan Province, China.

Every day, often multiple times an hour, while walking down the street I would catch several faces smiling at me, with one of their party trotting up to me for a photo. Smile, "ha ha ha ha" and thank you in English and Chinese. Then the shooter and the subject would change places, others would see the activity, waiting their turn to be photographed with the "Dabizi".

I learned to pronounce it "Dah - be - zerrr", "big nose" or "long nose", the Chinese description for foreigners. I figured that described me pretty well, so I embraced the term.

In September street performer sings for tips at night market while baby-toting mom (right) photographs the Big Nose, Kaifang, Henan Province, China.

 One afternoon I was completely pooped from walking in an amusement park for hours in the heat and humidity, so I bought a cold bottle of juice and was leaning on a tree while the multitude surged around me. I felt a gentle nudge on my back, and turning, discovered a teen age girl sneaking close to have her picture taken with the visiting Big Nose. She was to shy to talk to me, so I turned around and gave her camera phone toting boyfriend a big grin.

Last month young woman commuting home on electric scooter pauses to text, Anyan, Henan Province, China.

OK the headline at top is a bit of hyperbole, a billion Chinese weren't really shooting my picture, nor a million, and I doubt if no more than a bunch of dozen zoomed in on me. But I had fun meeting so many Chinese who were friendly and genuinely curious about a Big Nose.

Best (Kayak) Camera Is The One That's With You

Fish Eating Creek overflows live oak and palm tree forest last October near Lake Okeechobee. Shot with Canon PowerShot S100 point 'n shoot digicam.

Today I'm attempting to connect the dots between a weekend conversation, a trending style of internet photography and, lastly, staying creative while paddling a kayak. Let me know If I've succeeded ...

Sunday I had my photojournalist hat on while on assignment at the Miami’s Marlins Stadium, shooting two foster children and their adult mentor for an upcoming multimedia program. I had my two Nikon D300 DSLRs with three zoom lenses while I worked in and around the fans seated near my subjects, when a young woman asked what I was doing. I explained the story, and she said “wow those are pretty nice cameras, you must be getting great photos”.

Most professional photographers have heard such remarks many times, and I admit, even my 2008 era digital cameras, now a generation out of date, do allow me to make images in difficult situations. In the stadium, I needed wide angle to telephoto focal lengths, a fast motor drive and good low light capabilities.

Rainbow at sunset this January while paddling in Atlantic Ocean off Bahia Honda Key. Shot with Canon S100.

But it’s not the camera that makes the photograph, I thought to myself, it’s your story telling eye, your vision of the world and your people skills that capture the images.

In a rush, I not very eloquently told her that such cameras "help, but you still need a brain!”

Just because I go out and buy a set of law books doesn’t make me a lawyer, nor having the cash to buy a Ferrari won’t make me a race car driver. Heck, even buying the latest and most expensive Nikon won’t make me a better photographer. (Note to Santa, a Nikon D4 and a D800 would be sweet!)

While paddling the back country in Everglades National Park's 10,000 Islands area, I photographed wave details with Nikon P6000.

Several years ago photographer Chase Jarvis’ The Best Camera Is The One That’s With You became a sensation,  in which he urged everybody to just use that camera phone in you pocket. Shoot what you see and experience every day. It’s your creativity that matters, not fancy equipment nor exotic locals. Keep it simple, and practice practice practice.

Sorry this post is not another iPhoneography convert having fun with cool camera apps. I’ve used my iPhone camera a little, but somehow that internet phenomenon of post processing camera phone photos with colors, effects and borders hasn’t clicked for me. I’ll leave that to others, including friend Steven Boxall’s I Shoot You Long Time blog.

Clouds are icing atop Miami city skyline during paddle around Elliot Key in Biscayne Bay. Nikon P6000.

But my creativity and insatiable curiosity about nature and the outdoors gets going the moment I sit in my kayak, launch onto open water, and I pull out my digital point ’n shoot camera to document what I experience and discover. I used to paddle with my DSLRs and long lenses, but once I began to  record audio from my kayak, I was carrying to much gear to have any fun. My current Canon PowerShot S100 is about the same heft and volume as my iPhone yet packs a lot of capability. 

It goes without saying that only having my point 'n shoot with me in my kayak makes that camera the best at hand. And as long as I “... still need a brain”, I'll make out just fine.

Dry season on Nine Mile Pond in Everglades National Park forces me to share shallow water with several alligators. Note, as your review mirror warns, wide angle lens makes six-foot gator seem further away than reality. Nikon P6000.

Sounds Overheard: Alcatraz Listens To Freedom

 

After rowing around Alcatraz Island for sport, two athletes return to the freedom of downtown San Francisco.  

The long concrete cell blocks rose three stories high above the prison floor, their steel doors permanently open and silent. Even though hundreds of visitors passed where nearly 1,500 of the country's most dangerous prisoners spent years of their lives, including Al Capone and Robert "The Birdman" Stroud, only a quiet murmur floated about the concrete and steel.



Listen to the sound of footsteps recorded in The Hole contrast with birds, waves and far off bell, sounds of freedom wafting into Alcatraz. iPhone & iPad friendly version.

Last November I was visiting Alcatraz Island, one of the Golden Gate National Parks, a rocky outcrop in San Francisco and a scant 1.5 miles from the downtown skyline. 

Inside the notorious D-block, also known as The Hole, where the worst of the worst were housed for bad behavior, I entered an eight by eight foot all steel cell. My steps thumped from the floor, off the  walls and bounced from the ceiling. I paced back and forth between the to close walls. Was this what a prisoner heard while isolated in near darkness?

Now a National Park, the federal prison on Alcatraz Island housed the USAs toughest convicts, from 1934 through 1963.

Outside the cell house and along a cliff side trail, my attention was drawn to the sound of waves lapping the shoreline, and the sound of birds nesting along the rocky cliffs. The low drone of an unseen airplane passed overhead. I wondered if these sounds of the outside world ever reached the confined convicts ... maybe on a very still day.

As I explored the walled recreation yard where prisoners could see the blue sky and breathe fresh air, work out or play a game of baseball, I could not see San Francisco Bay, but I could hear it as a navigational buoy bell clanged every few seconds.

Wild flowers grow through concrete of the high walled recreation yard, one of the few places prisoners could enjoy the out doors. It is within earshot of crashing waves and a buoy bell along the island's rocky shore.

What was it like for prisoners, confined in the toughest federal prison in the country, to hear these sounds from the outside world, the sounds of freedom drifting into their grim world?

During my assignments and travels I've been recording the sounds I overhear, and many don't have supporting photographs or stories. This occasional series will be my excuse to share my audio orphans, these Sounds Overheard. Please also visit my Miami commercial photography portfolio.

Sounds Overheard: Chants At Rebuilt Monastery

Incense wafts on late afternoon sunlight at Reting Monastery North of Lhasa, Tibet. 

The Reting Monastery’s 11th century walls were freshly painted bright white, deep orange and dusty red. Gilded deities kept an eye on me from their perches atop cracked timbers supporting the roof. I felt I could reach up to touch the brilliant blue sky, as I was standing extra close at over 13, 000 feet. It was completely quiet. No breeze rustled the fall leaves, no birds chirped, no footsteps distracted me.

Listen to 1:22 recording of two Tibetan Buddhist monks chanting and playing drum and cymbals. Try headphones to hear stereo effect. iPhone & iPad link.

Suddenly two young monks rushed across the temple courtyard and disappeared through a narrow stone doorway, their red robes a quick flash of color. Soon a loud drum shattered the silence, boom, boom, boom. Then brass cymbals crashed. I followed the rhythm through the doorway and into a narrow room, a sliver of stony space with candle soot blackened walls rising two stories to an open window high above. 

The two monks began chanting in Tibetan, rapid fire fast, their voices drawn up and out the window and over the hillside temple complex, calling their brother Buddhist monks to evening prayers.

During China’s chaotic Cultural Revolution, this magnificent monastery North of Tibet’s capital Lhasa was nearly destroyed, stones and timbers torn down and salvaged for building projects, it’s monks harassed and disbanded. Since Reform and Opening of the late 1970’s, China has slowly become an economic power house tolerant of religion and money making, as long as the Communist Party is not threatened. Government and private funds are rebuilding many cultural sites, and Reting’s former splendor is slowly rising from the large piles of rubble awaiting rebirth.

During my assignments and travels I've been recording the sounds I overhear, and many don't have supporting photographs or stories. This occasional series will be my excuse to share my audio orphans, these Sounds Overheard. Please also visit my Miami commercial photography portfolio.

Roaring Chinese Children Sweep Photo Cobwebs

I had just flown and sat around in airports for nearly 30 hours to reach Chengdu from Miami, and by my first morning I needed to stretch my legs, get some fresh air and make some photographs. As I entered Wenhua Park, just a few steps from my hotel, I could feel the cobwebs tugging at the corners of my tired brain.

I love wandering Chinese urban parks, especially early in the morning while millions head off to work through honking traffic and yellow smog. I find open spaces, greenery, even chirping birds. And parks provide lots of people enjoying themselves outdoors, easy to approach and photograph.

Kindergarten-age children roar like lions during school outing in Wenhua Park, Chengdu.

I’ve been invited to China several times to attend photographic festivals, and once to lecture at a trade school, and my eager hosts booked my days with activities they thought a photographer would enjoy. Visiting the ethnic village and puppet factory made photos. The trip to the electrical cord factory and municipal museum, not really. But by getting up early and skipping breakfast, I could fast walk to the closest park and find people I would shoot on my own terms.

And skipping a breakfast of cold noodles with super spicy meat sauce, watery oatmeal or pickled shredded vegetables would keep my mind on the pancake house back home give me time to shoot.

 

 Children race to picnic area in Wenhua Park last October.

On this weekday in Wenhua Park I found children flowing past the usual seniors tango dancing and performing tai chi with swords. The young, brightly dressed elementary aged students were on school sponsored outings with teachers and parent volunteers.

As about three dozen kids sat in tiny plastic chairs, their teacher read them an adventure story while encouraging them to vocalize the animal’s roars and growls.

As I plopped down nearby on the pavement and began making photos, the children cheered, laughed and howled at the top of their lungs. I shot wide, then closer, then super tight, picture after picture, the children’s expressions were terrific. Before I knew it, their roaring and blown away my cobwebs and I was ready for the coming three weeks traveling in China.

Wearing the red scarf uniform, a member of the Young Pioneers is curious about my 

cameras in Wenhua Park, Chengdu, China.

To see more photography from China, please visit my Miami editorial photography portfolio site.

Sounds Overheard: Seeing Tibet With Closed Eyes

 

Pilgrims worship at the Jokhang Temple, Tibetan Buddhism's holiest site.

Exploring Lhasa on my first day in Tibet was so overwhelming that I was having trouble seeing photographs. Crowds of Buddhist pilgrims dressed in regional costumes streamed down every street, Han Chinese merchants in Barkhor Square sold everything from prayer wheels to yak butter and the occupying Chinese army marched with assault rifles at the ready.

I was gasping in the thin air at 12,000 feet altitude. My stomach was deciding if it liked my yak stew lunch. Colors were way to saturated, the blue sky, the monk’s saffron robes and the rooftop golden lambs.

So I closed my eyes and started listening for pictures.

Close your eyes, listen to the sounds around the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, and tell me what you see. iPhone & iPad link to 1:48 long MP3.

The first sound I heard was a far off rhythmic slapping and chanting.  I discovered over a dozen workers, men and women, building a traditional aga earthen roof atop the Jokhang Temple. They were on their hands and knees with hand held wooden paddles compacting the mix of gravel, dirt and water infused with willow tree bark.

I recorded the sound of wooden and leather hand protectors scraping on the cobble stone temple square as the pilgrims prostrated them selves in repetitive prayer. They stood with their hands together above their heads, then down on their knees, then on their stomachs with arms out stretched.

My ears discovered a man singing prayers from a well worn book of Tibetan script, his voice competing with the thousands of pilgrims circumambulating the mile-long circuit around the temple.

Slowly the sounds awakened the visual corners of my brain, I opened my eyes  and began making photographs.

Editors note: If you visit the "aga earthen roof" link above, poke around the site a little and see how the Chinese government views the Tibetan people.

During my assignments and travels I've been recording the sounds I overhear, and many don't have supporting photographs or stories. This occasional series will be my excuse to share my audio orphans, these Sounds Overheard. Please also visit my Miami editorial photographer portfolio.

Video Stories With Vision & Collaboration

As a group still photographers are creative, independent and stubborn as we’ve relied primarily on ourselves in pulling successful photos from challenging assignments while at the same time embracing the digital information age.  But as we’re being asked to add video to our story telling tool set, we’re being forced to - gasp - learn new skills and - double gasp - collaborate with others.



Four still photographers collaborated in producing a web video promoting Nancy Brown’s photography book “Simply China”. Paul Morris with video, lighting and studio space. Tom Salyer recorded sound and edited. Jonathan Rios as production assistant. Nancy Brown, on camera talent and stills. http://vimeo.com/39290394

On my section of the long tail of photography the four-year economic crisis has reduced my assignment budgets to hiring an assistant to very rare. I’m producing my shoots, setting up my lights and processing my own files. That’s were stubbornness comes in for us, we can do it ourselves doggone it.

I’ve heard wondrous stories of colleagues working on high budget advertising shoots with a producer, hair and makeup, assistants and digital tech. And a lunch budget, oh my! 

OK, I agree, the idea of every photographer being a lone wolf working completely on their own is not completely accurate, at least in the commercial photography field. We all have colleagues we can call for advise and insight with projects, our art directors give us direction, and most still shoots are not overly complicated.

Working either on our own or with a small crew, our independence drives our ability to visualize our images in advance and make them happen. Our “eye” is our strongest asset, and can be transferred to another medium.

By comparison, with motion projects the nuts and bolts of producing technically successful video is very complex and has a steep learning curve. You thought learning about color spaces and layer masks were hard? Try mastering Final Cut Pro, motion graphics and compression codices.

Video requires many jobs: director, producer, director of photography, camera operator, lighting grip, sound recordist, and editor. On simpler shoots a person can handle multiple jobs, but there are to many moving parts for one transitioning still photographer to handle them all. The story line will be jumbled, the picture overexposed, the sound levels low.

NFL St. Louis Rams head coach Jeff Fisher is interviewed last weekend by Paul Morris, far left, and Orlando Noah, left center, at The Breakers, Palm Beach, FL. Photo by Tom Salyer.

Photographers need to collaborate with the people who already have these skills, and our unique vision is the key to success. We already approach image making with our life time of experience as visual story tellers. We already know how to compose a great image, capture a decisive moment, and creative lighting is a piece of cake.

Clients are beginning to come to still photographers asking to add on motion for web sites and social media because they trust their eye and ability to successfully complete jobs. Don't worry big video production companies, most of us aren't competing with you. Yet.

Examples:

- Minneapolis based Ryan Siemers has been expanding his architectural photography business by adding motion, interviews and animations.

- Jeffery Salter, a Miami portrait and fine art photographer, collaborated with videographers on stories for Readers Digest: Richard Patterson on former football player Keith Fitzhugh, and with Chuck Fadely on long distance swimmer Diane Nyad.

- Miami commercial photographer Paul Morris has added video to two still photography assignments in the past months: executive interviews for farm equipment trade association American Equipment Manufacturers, and National Football League head coaches for New Era head wear suppler. I was sound recordist on both, and Orlando Noah and Meine Smith of Digital Decaf provided video and digital services on the latter.

Please see example of my Miami multimedia photography portfolio.

Sounds Overheard: Key West Sunset Celebration

Sky high street performer entertains last month at Key West's Sunset Celebration.

If you visit Key West, or the Florida Keys, or Florida, or for that matter, the USA, and haven't attended the eclectic daily celebration of the sun sinking into the brilliant blue Gulf of Mexico, you are missing an amazing experience.

Somehow the official description from the Sunset Celebration organizing committee doesn't capture all the flavor and quirkiness:

Sunset Celebration is a nightly arts festival at Mallory Square Dock in Key West, Florida. The participants of this Key West attraction consist of arts and crafts exhibitors, street performers, food carts, psychics and of course the thousands of tourists from around the world who visit this Key West art show. Each night around two hours before sunset masses of people, both locals and tourists alike, flock to the water's edge to experience a multicultural happening and to watch the sun sink into the Gulf of Mexico.

So I've stuffed some of that Key West fun into a glass bottle for you, and thrown it into the sea in hopes of your finding it washed ashore on a deserted beach. The two minutes of field-recorded natural sound includes:

0:00  bag piper

0:23  escape artist schmoozes for tips

0:47  banjo player

1:13  pop corn pops

1:20  one-man band plays harmonica, guitar, drums and more

1:46  crowd applauds

Here is an iPhone & iPad version.

During my assignments and travels I've been recording the sounds I overhear, and many don't have supporting photographs or stories. This occasional series will be my excuse to share my audio orphans, these Sounds Overheard. Please also visit my Miami commercial photography portfolio.

Not So Picturesque Chinese Village Yields Photos

When “Mike” promised to take me to a quaint little village - “many good pictures you like for sure” - situated on the outskirts of the crowded, polluted and generally not quaint provincial capital of Sichuan Province, Chengdu, I said yes.

I met Mike while I was soaking in the peace and quiet of the Wenshu Monastery, an oasis within a metropolitan area of 14 million Chinese. He was there trolling for a days work as a tour guide. After nearly three weeks of travel in China and Tibet, I was pretty worn out with photography, but was game for one more day.

Last October, baby boy rides in his Grandfather's basket through Saturday Market.

Like many Chinese, Mike has adopted an “English name” for the sake of us visitors who are unable to get our Western tongues around Chinese names. He was 40 ish, wore thick glasses and scuffed shoes, and presented a hand written then Xeroxed business card listing about a dozen talents. But he was charming and full of stories of all the photographers he had escorted into hidden Chengdu. Back stage at the Sichuan opera, he suggested. Sorry, I’ve done that. Visit a religious person in their private quarters, thanks, I’ve had tea with a monk and cookies with a nun. Visit a picturesque farming village untouched by urban sprawl?

Ok, why not? I really didn’t expect a People’s Paradise, but I’ve made interesting photographs all over China in pretty drab surroundings. Safety, going off with a stranger? No problem, I was traveling with three women friends, they would protect me.

As the next day dawned with a drizzle washing the pollution from sky to street, a tiny rattle trap van wheezed up to the hotel, our private car with driver for the day. Mike was riding shotgun. No seat belts, but they would of just transmitted more discomfort from the vehicle’s frame, which had no springs nor shocks.

Seniors in old style Mao jackets smoke and play cards in tea house outside Chengdu.

We drove over an hour, past the modern skyscraper skyline, down the eight lane highway, then way out two lane roads through farm fields being bulldozed for housing. A dirt track led to an old stone bridge spanning a muddy brown river. As we pulled into the village, a woman pitched a bucket of kitchen scraps into the waterway from a house overlooking green fields.

We were in luck, it had rained all night, so the village wasn’t the least bit dusty, only muddy, and it was Saturday morning, market day! We plunged into the crowd and worked our way along the single street running above the river. Everything was for sale, onions, nuts, pet fish, clothing, live ducks and cheap electronics. Between vendors, customers and strollers, the entire town had turned out this morning. Coffee shops were full of mahjong players, smokers in blue Mao jackets puffed on hand rolled cigarettes stuck in long pipes, and mothers carried their “one child policy” children dressed in their cutest outfits.

Mike knew everyone, or at least he let on that he did. We were introduced to the smokers, the barber, the old lady crocheting in her kitchen goods stall, Mike was best friends with them all. It was fun watching him act important, and it helped to have someone breaking the ice with each group of new faces around the next corner.

Market day brings man in for head shave, while his warm cap awaits his departure.

And around those corners the drab little village yielded photographs, slowly, one by one. I kept an open mind, smiled and interacted, caught those passing moments that told a story of this village on this market day under this gray sky.

Lunch at the open-onto-the street kitchen was Mike’s triumph. With great flourish, insight and experience he ordered dish after dish for our group. Spicy noodles, tangy chicken, steamed vegetables, cold beer bottle after bottle, all witnessed by the market visitors with sufficient money to dine at neighboring tables. The rest of the market streamed by to check us out. (Editors note, the driver only had one beer, Mike saw to that.)

As the dishes arrived, one by one he educated us on their ingredients and flavors, and eloquently complimented the restaurant’s owner and her chefs. So much food, we worried! No worry, Mike and the driver set to work, clicking chopsticks and slurping soups, they kept going long after we were full. Obviously this was a banquet for the two of them, a tour guide perk, even though it only cost the four of us about $ 6 each.

Mike peppered us with questions about current events in the United States, and was obviously well informed. What did we think about the log jam in Congress? European debt crisis? President Obama’s relationship with President Hu? Between flying noodle and rice, “what you think about” ... sports, popular music, social media. Whew!

It was quite a day, our “picturesque” little village and our new best friend, “Mike”.

The last I saw Mike, he had just peeled off several large Yuan notes for the driver, and was walking off through Chengdu’s pedestrian crowd counting his money with a big smile on his face.

To see multimedia audio slide shows about travel in China, please visit my Miami multimedia photography portfolio site and click through to "Chinese Stories". Please also visit my Miami commercial photography portfolio.