What story does your photograph tell?

 In May 2023 I attended a TAMRON workshop in Farmington, NM where we visited Bisti/De-Na-Zin and the Ah-Shi-Sie-Pah Wilderness. These are BLM-managed badlands. We had a local guide when entering deep in the area. The first night was with Kailo Winters, then we had Gilbert Tsinnajinnie. The guides brought great insights to the area and exuded a pride in themselves that I enjoyed. 

One of the themes our TAMRON guides taught us was to think of "what story your image was trying to convey". The who-what-where-when-why kind of thinking that can go into your photograph. While that did not grab me with any huge changes to my approach I was open to it and continue to bring that thinking into a composition.

Here is a great photo of our group. There was our two TAMRON experts - Erica Robinson and Armando Flores. Our Navajo guide on the second day here is Gilbert Tsinnajinnie. We had some older workshop members that were great photographers. I found myself learning from each person. They had unique approaches and talents. Some of the men were great at finding FG objects like spring flowers to compose with. Others had a great eye for leading lines. You get the idea.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Outer Banks and Beyond

Image
 I set out in late April to join a workshop to be held in the Outer Banks of North Carolina to shoot piers, lighthouses, and beaches - hopefully with the Milky Way gracing us with dark sky views. We also had a few days to head over to an inner banks animal refuge where we might see bears, alligators and other wildlife. I stayed in Rodanthe at the KOA (in an actual room) arriving a few days early to get adjusted. I also planned an extra few days after to shoot wild horses on the beach of Carova further north.  Sunset in OBX Our biggest challenge was cloudy weather and also the timing of the Moon as it approached a New Moon after our workshop ended (but I'd still be in the area).  My first morning I rose before sunrise and shot the beach at the KOA which turned out to be fairly nice. I was able to rise early most other mornings and shoot the sunrise which was a lot of fun! I discovered that the colors and hues along the beach and in the water reveal amazing pastels and colo...
Read more

Japan 2024

Image
My wife and I enjoyed a trip to Japan in July. We toured across the country for 11 days and had a great time learning about culture, food and so much more. On this this trip the focus was not photography and wa geared more towards learning about Japanese culture and seeing the sites and cities.  We ventured on all forms of transport inclining the famed Shinkansen bullet train, ferries, airplanes, taxis/limos, Japan Rail subways and trains. I think I liked the Shinkansen the best - he had fancy first-class rail cars we glided upon. From a photo-taking perspective I found difficulty in using my gear. There were specific rules and restrictions in the many of the iconic locations we visited. In crowded areas one could not use a tripod to set up that perfect shot or use a filter to get a longer exposure for example. That didn't stop me from using my iPhone ALOT of the time. My photos from the journey came out pretty well. I have a mix of shots from my SONY A7 III and the iPhone 13Pro....
Read more

Learning every day

Image
 Today I spent a fair amount of time thinking, reading and wanting to understand ND filters. ND stands for Neutral Density and this type of filter seems to be a great tool for lowering the amount of light entering a lens. A good ND filter consistently limits all wavelengths of the visible spectrum equally. Now you'd think that for a guy like me interested in night photography I would not want to limit the light coming in for astrophotography... and that's true. But I've been thinking a lot about using ND filters with water and clouds and other things that move in a static field. So I would use a filter like this with day-time photography; golden hour and sunsets & sunrises too. For my upcoming trip to Iceland there will be opportunities to shoot ice on beaches, snow fields and snow caves! All of these things involve water in some form and for the liquids kinds I want to play with time using these ND filters, I think I am particularly good at understanding technology. I...
Read more