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This post is the third in an occasional series in which I describe the making of a photograph, from both a technical and artistic standpoint. I’ll go through the camera settings and why they were chosen, as well as the thought processes going through my head regarding composition and the creation of the image. These types of posts will be concrete examples of a previous post of mine called How Pros Photograph, which describes the various decisions that may be going through a photographer’s head as they work a scene and make photos. The first post in this series can be read here, and the second post is here.
This one can be called the Aperture Edition, as you will learn below.
The Photo: The photo I’ve selected for this example is one I took in Cusco, Peru in June 2008, called Men on Avenida el Sol. It was taken during the Cusco Week festivities, which is a series of events, dances, parades, and performances leading up to Inti Raymi, the Inca Festival of the Sun that occurs each year at the solstice. The wonderful thing about this week of activities is that it offers so many opportunities for a photographer to capture cultural, dance, and people photos. And because they are all public events where people expect, and even enjoy being photographed, it eliminates the difficulties and hesitations many photographers have about approaching individuals for photographs – although that is something any serious photographer needs to overcome, and it is actually quite easy. You approach the subject, make direct eye contact, and ask, “Do you mind if I take a photograph of you?” If they speak another language, hold up and nod towards your camera with a cheerful, inquisitive look on your face. They will either agree or not – problem solved!
Although I took hundreds of photos of the events over the week, I selected this one for this exercise because I learned something very definitively in the process of capturing it. More on that later. Although great subjects and action are directly in front of you during a parade or performance, there is a bit more to capturing good photos than just clicking away. I write a bit about that, with some tips and suggestions, in this post Cambridge Carnival.
This particular event was a parade down a main street of Cusco leading into the central plaza. I’ve created some strips of photos to show a selection of images as I worked this scene:
The Process: I was heading back home after taking dance photos in the plaza, and made my way down Avenida el Sol looking for additional quick shots. Most of the people and groups were standing about, waiting to move forward to perform or parade through the plaza, where the spectators were, so there were not many interesting opportunities. However, this group of older men captured my attention due to their wonderful expressive faces and their colorful traditional outfits. My intention was merely to capture these faces and subjects. However, they were a bit bored, just standing around waiting, so you can see most of the images do not really stand out.
I was using a Canon Rebel XT with a 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 II lens. I stood on the sidewalk near the group, and set my camera on Aperture Priority mode (Av on Canon, A on Nikon). This was so I could control the depth of field and call attention to single or multiple subjects and make the background a bit blurry and less distracting. I experimented with various aperture settings, ranging from f/4.5 to f/13 depending on if I wanted one of the men to be in focus or a row of two or three of them to be in focus. A wide open aperture such as f/4.5 will have a narrow depth of field so that just one of the men is in focus, where a narrower aperture such as f/8 or f/11 will have a deeper depth of field so that the entire row of men might be in focus. With the wide apertures, I focused on the eyes of the man I wanted in-focus, and with narrower apertures, I focused about 1/3 or 1/2 way into the area I wanted to be in focus, meaning if there was a row of three faces, I focused on the middle one. The ISO was set at 200 which allowed the camera to choose fast shutter speeds of around 1/1000 s. This is because I had been capturing dance and action scenes, and wanted to be ready for the same. The metering mode was set on the general Evaluative Metering, which did a decent job of capturing the proper exposures. A couple images were mysteriously overexposed, possibly due to where I locked exposure while I was locking focus – which is why I now use a back-button focusing technique and/or lock exposures separately from focus. White Balance was set on Auto, but would have worked on Sunny as well.
As you hopefully know by now, depth of field is controlled by the aperture setting. I write more about it in these posts Depth of Field Simplified and Mastering Depth of Field. Since your specific depth of field in any situation will vary based not only on the aperture setting but also on the lens focal length and your distance from the subject, it is often difficult to predetermine what exactly is going to be in focus in the resulting image. You can try using the depth of field preview button on your camera, but it is difficult to see in the tiny, dim viewfinder what the preview is showing. You can also use your rear LCD and trial and error to view a series of experiments. But again, this is only a small screen with relatively low resolution, so it is difficult to see the precise results. And in many situations you simply don’t have the time for these methods. You just have to get a feel for your lenses and their different apertures through experience and studying your results. But one thing is certain: to get minimum, shallow depth of field and thus maximum background blurriness with any lens, zoom in as close as you can, (for example, zoom to 200mm on a 70-200mm lens) situate yourself as close as you can to your subject while still obtaining the framing you want, and use the widest aperture possible (for example f/2.8 or f/4). Work back from that if you wish to increase the depth of field – for example to have a slightly deeper depth of field in focus, use an aperture of f/5 or f/5.6, or increase your distance away from the subject, or remain close but use a shorter focal length like 28mm or 50mm.
As you can see, most of the images are very “busy,” with a lot of extraneous and distracting background people and activity. I wasn’t very pleased with the images, but I continued to take basically the same image over and over. I knew the faces, outfits, and colors were interesting, and I hoped the resulting images would be as well. I zoomed in as close as I could with most of the images, working in the 75mm to 105mm range of my lens. However, without a lens that had the 100mm to 200mm range, I could not zoom closer and could not obtain the “compression” I was looking for, where the more distant faces would appear to be closer behind the closest subject.
What I didn’t do that I should have been doing, instead of trying to take the same photo over and over, was to change my position and point of view. Doing so would change the backgrounds, perhaps make them less busy or distracting (such as the spectators and the white sign), and would allow for the camera to be on the same level or looking up towards the subjects rather than looking slightly down at them.
I took a series of 60 images over a period of 7.5 minutes. Besides the selected image, only a couple other ones are mildly interesting. I knew I wasn’t capturing what I wanted, my companion was becoming impatient, and eventually I decided to move on. But then I took a few final images. My point of view had slightly changed. I was directly to the side of the men and slightly closer. The last image finally got what I had wanted. It stands out dramatically among all the other ones. It is more simple and straightforward, less cluttered, and the subjects fill the frame.
The Post Process: To create the final image, I adjusted the color and contrast in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) and in Photoshop (PS). As you can see by the unprocessed images, the color and contrast is a little dull and lifeless straight out of the camera. The original file was a JPEG file, and the Picture Style was Standard (I hadn’t started using RAW yet). In ACR, the Blacks were increased to about 7 or 10 to give it the nice deep blacks, which helps to make the bright colors pop even more. Some Recovery was used to bring back the overexposed highlights on the man’s face. Clarity and Vibrance were used to give it some, well, clarity and vibrance. In Photoshop, the contrast was increased with Curves using the preset setting of Linear Contrast. In Levels, the midtones were darkened to .93 to give a deeper more realistic color to the faces. I did some additional burning on the faces to try to reduce the hot-spots. The image was sharpened using Unsharpen Mask, probably at Amount: 85 or 100, Radius: 1, and Threshold: 4. I may have used the Hue/Saturation to reduce the saturation and lightness of the red color, though I should have done that a little more, as you can see by the man’s face which appears too red and the rear hat where the red is blown out. The Rebel XT sensor, and other digital SLR sensors often overexpose the color red. It is similar to blowing out the highlights, where the color red is blown out and there is just red and not other detail in those areas. You can use the RGB histogram rather than the brightness histogram to monitor for this on the camera’s rear LCD screen while reviewing images. I didn’t crop the image at all, as you can see. It is best to try to get the framing you want when you capture the photo, especially when using an 8 megapixel camera that doesn’t allow for much cropping! (A cropped image would have much lower image quality because the resulting resolution would be much less – it would not allow for much manipulation, and would appear pixellated when enlarged.)
The Final Image:
Canon Rebel XT, 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 II at 93mm, ISO 200, f/5, 1/1000s
The Lesson: We should always learn from our photos, so that next time we are in a similar situation, we can create an even better image. The valuable lesson I learned in this situation, in addition to perhaps always grabbing one final frame, is to make a change when the composition is not working. Change your perspective, angle, or point of view. Zoom in or out to change the framing. Don’t continue to take the same image that isn’t working, over and over again. If the subject is interesting, there is an interesting composition that can be found to best express that subject. Mentally envision the scene from a variety of positions and angles, and move around the scene as much as possible to see the options. Some other improvements I could have made to this image include using a polarizing filter. Because I was working in the bright, harsh mid-day sun at a high altitude, this could have improved the exposure, color rendition, and contrast of the original image. Since it was overexposed a bit, causing hot-spots on the subject’s face, I should have paid more attention to my histogram and adjusted the exposure compensation accordingly, or used a different metering mode such as Partial or Spot to meter directly off the man’s face.
So hopefully you can see from this explanation and from my previous posts that photographs don’t necessarily just happen. They are created through a combination of thought processes, a series of decisions, and the application of camera settings based on these decisions and on the situation at hand.
I just stumbled across this on Amazon – here’s my photo on the Viva Travel Guide – Machu Picchu and Cusco guide book.
Inca King at Inti Raymi – Sacsayhuaman, Cusco, Peru 2007
I would like to mention, for those researching digital SLR cameras, that this photo was taken with an Olympus SP-320, 7 megapixel point and shoot!
Two years ago, in 2008, I ventured to the annual rebuilding of the last remaining traditional Inca rope bridge, the Keshwa Chaca, which spans the Apurimac River near Huinchiri, Peru. My mission was to photograph the locals as they spun q’olla grass into rope, constructed the bridge, and celebrated the completion with a festival of traditional dance and music.
Previous posts describe my journey to the bridge site and show some of my photos from the weekend. Many of my photos are also posted on my website in the Inca Bridge gallery as well as in the dance gallery. One of my very favorite photos of the weekend was of this bridge-builder:
Keshwa Chaca 2008 – Huinchiri, Peru
As I was taking images of the bridge construction, this man quietly asked me to take his photo. A crowd of fellow bridge-builders quickly gathered to see it, and when I realized I had taken it in the black and white setting, I asked to do another in color. But it was too late. “Oh, es blanco y negro,” I said disappointedly, “¿un otra en color?” I asked. “¡Un otra desnudo!” an onlooker called out – “Another one in the nude!” The men erupted in laughter, the moment was gone, and I wasn’t able to take another. Luckily this one came out well, and ever since then it has been my goal to get a copy of the photograph to this man. Many people in developing countries have few, if any, photos of themselves or their family. I was sure he and his family would appreciate such a nice photo of this man standing modestly but proudly in front of the bridge he is helping to construct.
This year at bridge building time my friend Mitch Teplitsky (director of the documentary film Soy Andina) was visiting Cusco. He got in touch with me to find out more about the event and how to get there. When I learned he and his wife Doris had decided to go the following day, I begged him to find a way to print the photo and deliver it to the man. “It shouldn’t be hard,” I said, “just find a photo place on Avenida el Sol to print it out, and when you get there, just ask around, they will know him!” At least I hoped it would all be that easy. I’m not sure how they did it, but Mitch and Doris managed to print the photo, find their way to Huinchiri, and locate the man!
Keshwa Chaca 2010 – Bridge-builder and Mitch Teplitsky, photo by Doris Loayza
This weekend – June 10-13, 2010 – is the annual reconstruction of the Keshwa Chaca, the last remaining traditional Inca rope bridge (actually made of straw or grass), which spans the Apurimac River near Huinchiri, Peru. If you are in the Cusco area, I highly encourage you to visit the bridge building and the incredible dance and music festival which follows on Sunday. It is a truly unforgettable experience.
Weaving q’olla grass into rope to construct the Keshwa Chaca Inca rope bridge
To view photos I took of the 2008 reconstruction, check out this post. There are additional photos in the slide show on my website – www.dojoklo.com – in the Inca Bridge gallery.
This post describes my journey to get to the bridge site from Cusco. If you are a member of South American Explorers, be sure to look at my trip report online or in the binder to learn valuable information about getting to the site, what to bring (you need to bring all camping gear and food and cash for various expenses), a rough daily schedule of what to expect, and getting back home. Let me know if you went, and I’d love to see your photos.
Here is a reposting of my Mother’s Day post from a couple years ago from Peru:
Marilyn at Aldea Yanapay with tarjeta de la Dia de las Madres that reads:
“Happy Mother´s Day
Mommy, you are the prettiest
of all the parents, a flower that blooms
in my garden.
For this I love you
Mom.”
I just learned that I’ve accomplished one of my photography goals: to have my photo on the cover of a travel guide book! My photo of the Inca King at Inti Raymi was selected to be on the cover of the Viva Travel Guide Cusco and Machu Picchu guide book. As their website explains,
“V!VA Travel Guides is a web-based community intent on collecting and sharing the most up-to-date travel info available. Essays, reviews and ratings submitted by travelers are available both online and in published travel guidebooks.”
Inca King at Inti Raymi – Sacsayhuaman, Cusco, Peru 2007
f/5 – 1/800 – 18mm
The guidebooks, if I recall correctly, were originally only available as downloads due to them being updated so regularly. They are now offered as printed guides in paperback as well as some e-books, but are still updated frequently. They cover numerous South American countries including Peru, Columbia, and Ecuador, and they are soon branching out into Central America. You can buy the guides on their website, on Amazon, or in bookstores like Borders and Barnes and Noble. The Cusco and Machu Picchu guide with my cover photo will be released in October 2010.
If you ever attend Inti Raymi, (in the paid bleacher seats) be prepared at the end of the ceremony to go onto the field and get some quick close-up photos of the participants (and I mean close – note the 18mm focal length!) as they parade out of Sacsayhuaman. At least we were able to do that a couple years ago, when I was lucky enough to capture this dramatic shot. This was the guy who, through sheer force of will, invoked the clouds to part and the sun to shine down on us, stunning the entire crowd (which included Bill Gates that year).
I haven’t written an update on Clara for awhile, so there is a lot to catch up on!
As previously discussed, my friend Nienke put me in touch with an American special needs teacher here, Celeste, who then arranged for a young deaf Peruvian women, Karen, to work with Clara. Finally everyone’s schedules coodinated, and they came to Yanapay to visit. Clara soon figured out that we were discussing her, and she refused to join us, acting unusually shy and hesitant. Nevertheless, Celeste explained everything to Yuri, and acted as a multi-communication translator, signing to Karen and telling me in English. Yuri was thrilled with the idea, as was Karen’s mom, whose support was also important for this to work. I was beaming with happiness, as it seemed Clara was finally going to get consistent help. In the process, I obtained my name in sign – a “d” next to my glasses. Finally Clara was forced down to join us, the idea was explained to her as best as possible, and she agreed to work with Karen.
On the first day of class, Karen and I sat down with Clara, and Clara already didn’t seem very happy. She kicked me under the table in protest, but we carried on with the lesson. Karen went through the alphabet in sign, and then seeing that she hadn’t brought any materials, I pulled out my flashcards. She went through each of those, with Clara learning the signs. She then quizzed Clara, and she remembered nearly all of them. Not knowing what to do next, I ran to the storeroom to get some drawing materials. However, when I returned, Clara had run off, and I had no success in coaxing her back. “Poco a poco” I told Karen, little by little.
The following day, Clara wouldn’t even sit down with us to start the lesson. We tried and tried to persuade her to join us, but no luck. Eventually, however, as Karen and I stood around not knowing what to do, Clara invited Karen up to the games room. Great! Clara is warming up to her teacher! I thought. Karen was hesitant, but luckily she went up and joined Clara. I left them alone, with the hope that Karen would turn it into a learning opportunity. After about 10 minutes, they came down and went into the art room. I tried to spy a bit, but mostly gave them their space. They weren’t really working with each other, but working next to each other was a start.
By the following day, Clara would no longer greet me. I assume it was because I was making her work, and perhaps because she comes to Yanapayto play, to have fun, and to be with other kids. It is entirely possible that she is in her house all day, as she no longer attends school. She wouldn’t sit down to work with Karen, and I began to think it all might fall apart. I was away from Yanapay for a few days, and was afraid the lessons be over when I returned.
Although Clara still wouldn’t greet me when I returned, she was proudly sounding out, “I am Clara!” One of the volunteers had somehow taught her that. She was also showing that she could sign her name. I joyfully discovered that Karen had brought 2 of her friends, and they all worked with Clara that day. It turns out, in my absence, the teachers at Yanapay had explained to Clara that if she wants to continue to come to Yanapay, she has to work with Karen. I was extremely curious what they were all doing in the classroom, but I left them alone, and they worked for well over an hour.
A few weeks later, Karen started a job, but she had started to go to Clara’s house on Sundays for the lessons, which are hopefully continuing. Last week, again after an absence when I went to Puno and Bolivia, I returned and saw Clara signing with Yuri. It was not longer gestures and pantomimes, but real signing, which she seemed to be doing it with new found confidence and perhaps even a slight bit more maturity than I had seen before!
Please view additional Yanapay photo essay at www.dojoklo.com
OK, so I’ve been very forgetful. I forgot to do a special post for Tracie and for Aunt Vickie and Grandma on their donation days. I will have to make that up to you… BUT, today is Gail Zimmer’s donation day and birthday! Her donation was for a doll related art project with the kids. Since I was supposed to be in the jungle now working in Pilcopata, I was going to do that at this time. However, since that gig fell through, I am carrying my art materials deep into the jungle to Iquitos next week. When I hook up with a volunteer organization, hopefully in a secluded indigenous community, I will attempt to do that project. In the mean time, here are some pictures from an outing with the Aldea Yanapay kids. We hiked just outside of Cusco, and explored a creek and some woods for the afternoon. The kids loved playing in the water, and many left quite wet, along with a couple unlucky volunteers.
Heading out
Yuri helping a little one across
Jenni in the water
Marylin
Clara getting ready to cause trouble!
“Mira Profe!” The little ones were amazed by the wonders of nature
Diana playing in the mud
Maria calm and composed as always
Yuri and the kids
Ascending the trecherous hill
Returning from collecting leaves and seeds for future art projects
Descending the trecherous hill
Heading home
**Sorry, the links to most the photos got messed up. Please view photos in the Peru gallery at www.dojoklo.com or my Inti Raymi set on Flickr here.
Here are some shots from the Inti Raymi morning ceremony to greet the sun, at Coricancha. I got there bright and early, and hour and a half before, in order to get a good spot on the railing. But the front row was already full! What to do? Wait until someone makes the mistake of leaving their spot, and jump right in! Then push, nudge, and hold my ground for the next 3 hours.
The map uncovered by Paolo Greer demonstrating that Hiram Bingham wasn’t the first outsider to “discover” Machu Picchu (and the farmers living there, who presumably knew it was there as well)
A few months ago I met a real life explorer in the South American Explorer’s Club in Cusco named Paolo Greer. He told me of his lifetime of searching for lost cities in the mountains of Peru, his studious research in dusty archives in Washington and Peru (I don’t think you´re allowed to say “archive” without first writing “dusty”), and his technique of countering poisonous snakebites with a modified stun gun. He even mentioned an NPR show where he was referred to as the real Indiana Jones. AND, he was on the verge of breaking an amazing story of the true modern discovery of Machu Picchu.
At first I was fascinated and captivated, eager to hear of his adventures and his theories. But after a few afternoons in the clubhouse, I repeatedly overheard him tell the same stories to any eager audience. I began to suspect I had already learned all the juicy information.
Then last week, returning on a path back to Ollantaytambo after hiking to the Pumamarca ruins, we were joined by a British paleoecologist who was studying the ancient remains of mites buried in the mud of a lake. The rise and fall of the mites, it turns out, from Inca times to present, corresponds to the rise and fall of the local populations, due to the fact that the mites lived in the llama poop. Anyway, at his first mention of modern explorers, we exclaimed, “we know one of them!” Turns out he has been working with this explorer, helping him get his newly gathered information into the news. And 5 days later…here it is: (sorry, some of these links don’t work anymore)
Link to Article
Link to 2nd Article
Link to Article with Pictures of the Maps and Documents
edit 2011-07-26: Paolo Greer is now mentioned in a wonderful book by Mark Adams called Turn Right at Machu Picchu, a story partially inspired by the article that Greer was releasing in South American Explorer magazine at the time of this blog post. Greer cetainly is an “obsessed amateur historian,” as Adams calls him in the book, and single-mindedly determined to share his story. My companion and I had to begin to avoid him out and about in Cusco so as not to hear his theories again and again! The paleoecologist mentioned above is also a footnote in the book, footnote 9 page 186.
