How to photograph Anzac Day

For the past decade, I haven’t attended an Anzac Day without my camera.

Ever since I got my newspaper cadetship when I was 18, I’ve photographed at least one Anzac Day service a year, probably more.

One year, way back when, I shot a dawn service in Batemans Bay, then a morning march and service at Tomakin, then Batemans Bay’s main parade and service, then caught the end of an event in Moruya.

Four minutes silence and probably 1000 frames.

By the end of that day, and all the Anzac Days that followed it, you might forgive me for thinking that all the parades and the services are basically the same.

Marching, cheering, wreath laying, standing solemnly.

Different town. Maybe different weather. But all basically the same.

Seen one, seen them all, right?

No way.

Anzac Day is one of my favourite events to photograph, and while there are certain photos you need to capture (crowd, mayor, guest speaker, march, diggers, etc) there’s so many other one-off moments to try and land on your camera’s sensor.

Take the above photo of a mayor about to lay a wreath. I shot it at Myrtleford a couple of years ago, and it was a gamble.

I saw the gate, I saw the sun, and knew there was a picture there … if the mayor happened to walk a certain way to the Cenotaph. There was maybe a one-in-five chance he would walk my way.

Running my cameras in aperture priority with a flash in the hotshoe dialled down 2/3 of a stop, maybe more, just to fill in shadows, I squished myself and my wide 16mm lens, in behind the gate, hit the exposure lock button with my crosshairs on the sky, then moved my crosshairs to the gate and half pressed the shutter button.

Popped a test shot and saw that the sun looked like a big bright blob.

Changed to a small aperture, f16, and tried again. Now the sun looked like the sun (with a star pattern-shape).

Then I waited with camera to my eye. And hoped. And prayed Canon’s sometimes drunk flash metering system wouldn’t throw me a spanner.

Keep in mind I’m shooting into the sun, and that sun is pouring in through my viewfinder, piercing through my sunnies and scorching itself into the back of my eyeball.

(If I had this shot over, I’d have used my camera’s liveview.)

Eventually, I heard them announce the mayor’s name on the loudspeakers, then a sillouete flashed into my frame and I squeezed the button.

Click.

Got up and ran to the Cenotaph to shoot another bunch of shots of the mayor with my other camera with the 70-200 attached.

Only after that do I spare a second to review my shot, which I hope you’ll agree, was well worth the hassle.

Canon 1D Mk IV with 16-35mm lens @ 16mm, 1/300th, f16 and ISO 400.

Want to know more? Please ask me anything here.

Cheers, Ben.

Shot for The Border Mail. 

How I (mostly) beat my fear of food photography

I can’t do this, I can’t do this.

This would repeat over and over in my brain whenever I was assigned to photograph food, and, for years, I couldn’t shake the doubt.

I’d just fumble my way through the photos, stressing and sweating, reeling off frames, hoping that somewhere, in the hundreds of pictures, my editor would find one he didn’t completely hate.

It’s fair to say that food photography scared the heck out of me.

So I did what any sane photographer would do.

I tried to shoot as much of it as I could.

I’d beg, borrow and swap on to any food-related assignment I could, hoping that if I shot enough frames, A) the fear would eventually go away, and B) someday, my food photos might not totally suck.

And boy did I spend some frames on food jobs. Like, 400-500 pictures of a single plate of food.

I’d shoot available light, strobe light, constant light, reflectors, candles, high ISO, low ISO, handheld, tripod, shallow depth-of-field, deep depth-of-field, long lens, wide lens, prime lens, and even fisheye.

I’d shoot until the food was cold and my camera was too hot to hold.

Frantic, I’d rush back to the office, plug in my memory card and restart the hysteria, again, lost in a sea of mediocre pixels.

Then, my mate Grant happenned.

“Just tell it’s story,” said the curly-haired oracle.

Huh?

“Find it’s story,” he insisted. “Is it a light dish, or dense and dark? Is it warm winter food? A bright summery dish? Does it have hero ingredients, or is it an ensemble of flavours?

"Look at it or ask the chef questions. Then you’ll know what to do.”

For this food photo above, the chef told me it was a complex and  mix of roast vegetables. It looked so precise, clean and cool, that I popped it on a rustic board near a window and overexposed  my shot until the plate went white and the food looked really bright.

For the photo of the chef, I found a spot in the restaurant where the natural light looked cool. I popped a flash up on a stand, then locked the exposure so the bright parts of the frame had detail, then called the chef in to sit down.

He was busy preparing food in the kitchen so I did as much work as I could do without him before I bothered him. He sat down, and I moved the flash to camera left so it would fill his face.

I did a test shot, adjusted the flash, tested again, adjusted the flash, and tested one last time.

With the light looking nice, I got to work cajoling a nice smile out of the chef.

Do I still get nervous before a food shoot? Heck yes.

But thanks to Grant, I can troubleshoot my way through the cold sweats.

If you’d like to see more of Grant, visit his tumblr at www.ggtakespics.tumblr.com or on twitter @ggtakespics.

I shot this recently for The Border Mail’s Fresh lift-out, which prints on Fridays.

If you’d like to know more, please ask.

Ben.

How to shoot into sunset to add drama

Four blokes, three cricket bats, a cute kid and a bit of sunshine.

What more could a photographer ever ask for?

Well, maybe a bit more time. The sun was dropping fast and I really had to hustle to get this shot done.

So while my mouth was moving, hustling the talent onto the oval, my fingers were dancing over my Canon ID Mk IV, locking in some pretty standard settings for shooting into the sun.

First, I tackled the ambient light … that being the light your flash won’t touch.

Got my shutter speed up to it’s highest native sync speed (For me, that was  *1/250th).

Then, I got my  ISO low (I was at 160).

Then, I picked an aperture as a starting point (I went with about f4).

And took a test photo.

Too bright, increase your f number. (For me, I got lucky, and it looked pretty balanced.)

Second, I sorted out my flash exposure. I like to work manual, so I guessed an output of probably 1/8th or ¼th, and recruited the cute little kid to hold the flash pointed in the middle of the four blokes.

Took another test picture. Flash exposure looked a bit hot on the blokes.

At this point, I had a few options. I could  turn down the power of the flash. I could  ask the kid to take a step away from the blokes. Or,  I could increase my f number and shrink my aperture a bit. All would dull down the flash exposure.

I opted for the easiest adjustment, moved my thumb a bit and shifted my camera to f5, which was where we ended up for this picture.

I shot several variations, some with the blokes blocking the sun from the camera (which left them beautifully rim lit), but I liked this look the best. It’s nice when, every now and again, your flash plays second fiddle to the best light source of all, the sun.

 Here’s the story that ran for the newspaper.

(* I know, I know, the Canon ID IV technically syncs at 1/300th of a second. But I’ve found I  can only achieve that specific shutter speed when I use a Canon-branded off-camera trigger. I was shooting a Cactus trigger, so my shutter speed choices were 1/250th or 1/320th.)

Questions? Please ask away.

Cheers,

Ben

How make your flash work twice as hard

I usually roll with two flash units in my camera bag. Sometimes, when I’m feeling fancy (or more likely, very lucky) I carry three. Which is a nice number of lights to work with when you’re shooting off-camera strobes.

Lots of options, lots of power, lots of versatility.

But lately, I’ve been stuck with one flash.
Yep, just one.
The new Canon 600 unit paired with the new Canon radio trigger. It’s a sweet rig – reliable, easy, way better than the old system – but … I’m now a one-light bandit.

Which, I’m surprised to say, has been refreshingly awesome.

Take the shot above.
With several flashes, you’d pump one zoomed flash from camera right onto the talent’s face, run another zoomed flash from really high on camera left onto the talent’s back, and run your last flash on low power from in front somewhere, wafting soft fill light into the mix.
Tweak power and aperture to taste … and done.

So, knowing the three-flash look I wanted, I set out to achieve that with one flash.
I hung the flash high on the wall out of frame on camera left, using a gorillapod and a bit of wire that protruded from the building.
I had the shutter at 1/250th and a starting point for aperture at maybe f5.6. ISO at 100.
Turned the flash up to about 1/8th power and took a test shot. Too hot on the talent’s hair.
Adjusted aperture and took a test shot. And again. Now at F10. Hair looks good but face too dark.

Asked the talent to keep pulling the newspaper she was holding closer to her face to illuminate it with reflected the flash’s blast as I took test shots.

After a bit of trial and error, we got it.

Here’s the photo with the Border Mail article.
Want to ask me a question? Click here.

How to make a photograph against the odds

Ah, the joys of shooting a fruit farming story outside of fruit season.

And it was raining, cold, and our talent (the guy I was photographing) prefered not to go outside.

(And the headache starts to build …)

Okay, think Ben, think.

Okay, those crates look cool, imposing, and the repetition is nice.

But their isn’t much light. What little light there is, it’s nice, but there isn’t much.

Fortunately, our talent is standing still.

“Stand here, sir, relax, and rest your hand here. Feel okay? Yes? Great!” I said.

Fumble ISO up to maybe 1000, perhaps more.

Drag the shutter down to a 1/20th, maybe lower. Aperture at whatever.

Click. Check screen. Looks okay, but our talent needs pop.

The lovely reporter with me holds a flash set on on a very low manual power (maybe 1/32) out of frame on camera left aimed at the talent’s face.

Click.

A bit bright.

Shrink aperture by a little.

Click again.

He looks good and sharp thanks to the flash, but now there’s a gross shadow cast onto the crates.

If this were a tight shot, I could just dial the flash power down and walk it in even closer to the talent to control that icky shadow, but, I want the wide-angle look, so …

… I grab my remaining flash and Gorillapod, and literally ram the ensemble into the crates beyond the right of the frame, and angle the flash back towards our talent.

Set it to a small power. Take a test shot.

No shadow.

I dial a bit more power into that same flash.

Nice.

I’ve scored a nice rim light that makes the talent pop even more from the background.

Not a bad result from where we could have ended up: a cold farmer standing among some wet empty fruit trees.

How to photograph a kick boxer

You might be shocked to here this: I’m not the toughest bloke you’ll meet.

But this shadow boxer might be, so it was important my portrait of him for the Border Mail looked tough as nails.

I stood the boxer in the middle of the ring, and used two flashes to sandwich him with light.

Imagine two flashes about three metres apart, pointed at each other. The boxer then stood right in the middle and faced the camera.

Light sandwich.

One flash was mounted to the top rope of the ring with a mixture of Gorrilapod and gaff tape and the other was held by a mate of the boxer. Manual output, power at about 1/16th.

I used my 70-200mm lens, zoomed to about 150mm, flicked the autofocus point over the boxer’s head, and the autofocus mode to continuous so his eyes would stay sharp even if he moved about a bit.

A few test frames later, the shutter speed was 1/200th to kill out the ambient light, and an aperture of about f9 exposed the flash nicely.

Then, I just asked the boxer to punch air and I shot away. At one point, I asked the mate with the flash to come a bit closer to camera, to light the boxer’s face from the front a bit more, but, in the end, I liked this shot more.

Questions, comments? Feel free to hit me up.

Ben