Category Archives: photography

Local color — Ajijic style

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While we in the United States paint little beige and light beige sample swatches on our walls to make sure we get that just-perfect vanilla, people in many other parts of the world are embracing color. I love it. I know it’s been done to death, but I am compelled to shoot doors and windows and brightly colored walls. I’ve not found it to be a lucrative field for stock, but I do get the occasional print sale. Probably someone wanting something bright to hang on their vanilla wall.

But I don’t really shoot these colorscapes for profit. I just need to make a record of the uninhibited audacity and joy that shines from these walls. They make me happy.

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I mean, can I even get that red at Home Depot? These were shot in the lovely little town of Ajijic on the shores of Lake Chapala about 30 miles south of Guadalajara, Mexico. The town is home to many US and Canadian retirees who flock there for the great climate. They bring their own local color, too. I was told that this fellow — spotted enjoying a drink at an open air cafe — was a former New Yorker:

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Shooting fashion

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My years with SATW (the Society of American Travel Writers) have given me the opportunity to shoot a lot of different things. On the first night of our Annual Convention in Guadalajara this year, we were treated to a fashion show during dinner. I learned long ago to always have a camera with me, just in case something spectacular happens (if you don’t have one with you, it will, guaranteed). On this evening I had unfortunately pared down to just the D700 and a 24-120 zoom. It’s not a fast lens, so I was glad to have the D700’s high ISO capabilities. The shots here were made at 6400.

The courtyard had been tented as rain was predicted (and it did indeed rain) but at least the tents were transparent so you could get some idea of the architecture above. It would have been amazing to have had this setting open to the sky but, trust me, we needed the shelter.

I’m not a fashion shooter but I’ll try it once. Heck, I’ll try it every chance you give me. Travel photography is all kinds of things: portraiture, architecture, action, food photography, etc. Take every opportunity and add as much to your repertoire as possible.

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Working the sunset, part 2

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Just down the beach from (and a couple of minutes after) the last shot, I spotted this couple walking along the surf. The two figures added a sense of scale to the landscape — just imagine this shot without them and the beach would seem much smaller. Here it looks endless and as though the two have the entire coastline to themselves. Even with my Nikon’s white balance set to cloudy for more warmth, I ended up adding a warming filter to this image in Photoshop to create a more dramatic, monochromatic look.

That sun sure moves fast

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On our way to the farmers’ market on Saturday mornings, I turn onto 15th street and see this view toward the campus of the University of Kansas. It’s always just around sunrise and the big orange ball of the sun is rising behind the twin towers of Frazier Hall. Last Saturday it was a particularly good sky — slightly overcast so that you could look right at the blood red sun. It was rising just to the left (north) of Frazier and I decided that I would start walking up to that spot in the mornings to see if I could get a photo when the sun appeared directly between the towers.

Six days later, I finally managed to have a clear-ish sky and the time available to make that walk. It was a nice morning — not quite as interesting as last Saturday — but I figure I’ll do this somewhat regularly to try the same scene in different qualities of light.

Above is a shot from just before sunrise this morning. I was initially surprised that, when the sun came up, it was already to the right of the towers. Then I remembered my lunch with a photographer friend yesterday who was telling me about his recent project of shooting prehistoric solstice markers. He was in town because he had just finished shooting a couple of them earlier in the week.

Duh. The Fall equinox was last Tuesday. 15th Street, being an east-west street, would be aligned to the sun on the equinox. I was three days late. Thinking back, Tuesday morning was dreary and rainy so I didn’t miss anything. Still… another thing to add to my shoot calendar for the Spring equinox next year.

Can somebody please turn the water back on?

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On our way out to Ohio last week we had a shoot in St. Louis. While there, I noticed that the fountain in Aloe Plaza — across from Union Station — was running. I’ve been to St. Louis several times and I believe this is the first time I’ve seen water in the fountain. I stopped, took a few scouting shots (one is seen at left, above) and planned to make a point of re-shooting it on the return trip a few days later.

My plan was to make use of a free morning I had on the way home and catch the fountain at sunrise. Weather willing, the sky would be a beautiful blue, the front of the train station would be catching the first rays of sunlight and the fountain would be dark in the foreground, in the shadow of the surrounding buildings. I planned to use off-camera flash to light the sculptures and put some sparkle in the water, which would otherwise be rendered silky smooth due to a long exposure. Sounds like a plan, eh?

As we arrived back in St. Louis the day before this planned shoot we made some calls to make sure the fountain would be running at sunrise. Not much luck in that department. The best answer we received was that the fountain’s schedule was “wonky” and if it was running it was running. If not, it was likely off for the season.

I decided to take my chances and left the hotel early, making my way down Market Street in the pre-dawn darkness. I found a parking space, hefted my pack onto my back and walked to the fountain just as the sky began to glow like a Maxfield Parrish painting.

No water.

The shot on the right is a record of my disappointment. I guess I’ll just have to add this to my mental shot list for next time I’m in St. Louis.

Almost but not quite

I returned from Ohio on Saturday and ran right back out the door for a shoot at a winery near Kansas City on Sunday. The plan was that there would be a large number of people harvesting grapes but that work has been postponed for a week to let the fruit build up some more sugar. I’ll probably go back again next weekend but thought I’d better get something in the can yesterday since the weather was good. No telling what next Sunday might be like. So, I made do with the absolutely terrific owners of the winery and staged a little bit of a harvest. I really like what I got but also look forward to shooting the entire process with buckets and buckets of grapes.

The Ohio trip also went well but there was always a little something that prevented me from getting what I had in my head onto the card. I usually have some preconceived idea for a shoot before I arrive on location. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. The best is what seems to happen most often and that is discovering something that is even better than what I had in mind. Certainly a lot of that happened on this trip but there were also a few shots that I would have loved to have captured that just didn’t come together. I’ll post more about those missed opportunities over the next few days.

Oh, and I finally have a shiny, new version of WordPress powering this blog. There have been a few hiccups so far but I hope to soon be able to add some new bells and whistles.

Lying down on the job

airport shot “Tower? We see a body lying on the runway. Can you confirm?”

No, I didn’t have a trip-and-fall, I’m just doing what it takes to get the angle during my shoot yesterday with Duncan Aviation in Lincoln, Nebraska. I’m under contract to not publish anything from the shoot until the magazine comes out but Sally had no such restrictions on what she could grab with her iPhone. So there you go.

It was a great shoot. The sky wasn’t the ideal but at least it wasn’t raining buckets like the evening before. We made it work. And the folks at Duncan couldn’t have been nicer. Really, really great people to work with. If I had my own personal jet, I’m sure I’d have them do my maintenance.

It could happen.

On the drive home, it was easy to tell when we crossed back into Kansas:

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Playing with my food

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I needed a shot of some cherries for an upcoming episode of our vidcast, Travel by the Pint, today so we made a quick run down to the local grocery store and picked up a bag. Back in the “studio” (more of a spare bedroom, really), I set up a small light table left over from slide sorting days and leaned a large piece of light blue paper up about three feet behind it to give a nice color contrast to the red and yellow fruit.

I placed three cherries on the lightbox and turned it on. A window to the left added a highlight to the upper left side of the cherries but didn’t light the background paper enough to balance the brightness of the lightbox. I popped up the on-board flash on the D700 and used it in commander mode to control my SB600 which I held over the cherries, pointing toward the backdrop. I had a diffusion dome on the flash to help soften and even out the background light and it also added another little highlight to the top of the cherries.

Shooting with a Nikkor 60mm macro lens, I set the aperture to f/8 to ensure the cherries would be in focus but the background would be softly blurred. I also wanted the black edge of the lightbox to be out of focus so that it would become an abstract stripe rather than a recognizable piece of metal edging.

I shot several other versions — and this is actually not the one we’ll use — but I thought I’d share it here as an example of how a few items from around the office can come together for make a quick graphic image. All in all, the whole shoot took maybe 15 minutes. And I end up with some nice stock images and a snack for later.

Holland… Michigan, that is

Windmill in Holland, Michigan

Just back from a few days shooting in the Holland, Michigan area. What a beautiful place! The tulip festival was the previous week but the blooms were still holding up. Clouds would roll in and out but clear skies were always there when needed. This is Holland’s Windmill Island complete with an authentic Dutch windmill, moved here in the 1960s.

I’m heading into one of the busiest shooting seasons that I can remember and I probably won’t have another full day in the office until sometime in the latter half of June. Fun stuff ahead — I’ll post whenever possible.

Michael C. Snell photography blog

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