One of the things I enjoy most, besides taking photographs, is taking people along with me to some of my favorite locations. Sharing the experiences I love with others is very fulfilling. I’ve been taking small groups of people to some of the locations where favorite episodes of Travels to the Edge took place. As seen in one of those episodes, Japan in winter is simply magical. Much of the wildlife has been habituated to people, and therefore translates into amazing photographic experiences.
First we’ll visit the snow macaques that live in the mountains about two hours west of Tokyo. Here in an isolated steep cut valley with an amazing mountain lodge are three extended families of macaques, numbering around 50. Because they are the most northern primate on earth, they have the longest, luxuriant fur of any primates, particularly in the winter months. They come down from the pine and oak forests and for a couple of hours a day they hang around a natural hot spring. They have been habituated to people visiting them there, so you can photograph from within inches without interrupting their behavior, which is very animated and fun. It is a photographic bonanza.
After visiting the macaques, we will travel to the northern island of Hokkaido. Hokkaido reminds me a bit of Alaska, full of forests of birch, pine and fir with a back drop of beautiful volcanic mountains. There are also large lakes and wild running rivers, and hosts three species of bird wildlife that are extraordinary to photograph. The Japanese Crane has been symbolized in Japanese culture for thousands of years due to its grace and beauty. Giant whooper swans come in the winter months from nesting in Siberia. They have been fed by locals for years, helping them sustain thru the winter, as well as creating an easy and wonderful photographic opportunity for us! And often Steller’s sea eagles will swoop around the same area. They are massive black and white raptors that winter over on the icy shores of Hokkaido.
The days are short in February on Hokkaido, but the beautiful hues of sunrise and sunset are protracted allowing us hours to capture quite stunning images. After sunset we will have time for a hot bath at the lodge before eating a traditional Japanese meal. After dinner we will have time for lectures and critiques before calling it a day. With the abridged daylight, it really allows for a nice schedule to fit everything in and still have enough hours for a good night’s sleep! Since we travel in and out of Tokyo, you will get to experience the surreal and wonderful contrast that Japan has to offer, not only the very modern and bustling city, but the natural and beautiful countryside.
I invite you to explore this unique and rich habitat with us.
I have been using a Phase One camera system for my Human Canvas images over the past couple of years. At 60 megapixels the detail and resolution is so sharp I can enlarge the final images to life size and beyond, critical for this body of work. I have always shot with it in a studio, where the camera was mounted 16 feet above the floor in a warehouse ceiling and tethered to a laptop where it was triggered with a key-stroke. That was a collaborative experience, so I wouldn’t say I really got to experience the Phase One one-to-one.
So, that begs the question…what about using it outside of the studio setting?
I recently set out into the Cascade Mountains to find out. Even though it is a medium format camera system, the Phase One still fits into my same old camera bag. I just needed to move one little Velcro divider around to accommodate it.
It was far from an ideal day for photography – there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, the sun was at its peak overhead, it was hot, mosquitos were out and nothing was really calling out to me. With lunch in mind I saw a large patch of snow in the distance with a stream running out from under it. Since I’d hiked above the tree line, this was the only potential shade within reach. In anticipation of dipping a handkerchief in the cold water and eating some lunch, I set out for the snow bank. And that’s where I saw it…
The stream and winds had carved out a large tunnel under the snow, and even from the entrance I could begin to see shades of blue, deep in the cave. I’ve been a mountaineer almost my entire life, climbing the volcanoes in the Northwest, crevassed glaciers, even climbing to the lower level camps with an expedition on Mt. Everest, so I knew this situation had “extreme caution” written all over it. Looking over the snow, wall thickness, and arch of the top, I decided to proceed as one would on a snow bridge over a crevasse – very cautiously.
I stuck very close to the side walls; if the roof was to collapse this would have been the safest place to be. Moving into the cave was like entering a cathedral. A reverence for the beauty of the unexpected display was overwhelming.
Immediately I saw the potential in abstracting the icy blue glow of the ceiling fueled by the direct sun overhead. I used a 55mm lens (34mm equivalent), my attention fully focused on the otherworldly qualities of the ceiling. Looking through the viewfinder of the Phase One, the patterns and lines abstracted into soft human forms, suggestive of the Rubenesque feminine ideal form.
At other times I was drawn to the lines within the form, like the layers of geological time recorded in a rounded stone found alongside a river. The colors varying between blues and yellows only added to the final composition.
Shooting and shifting my point of view I worked the ceiling as a subject finding more and different compositions with each new angle. I could have stayed with this subject for hours. It was so unexpected – a real treat for what had promised to be a rather bland day.
The Phase One system is very intuitive with a huge LCD and touchscreen menus. I was able to easily navigate the functions to set up the camera for the way I like to work, even in the cave. When you are talking about a medium format system, it’s all about image quality – and this one delivers. The system combination of superb Schneider Kreuznach leaf shutter lenses, 645 DF Camera body and IQ 160 digital back produce the sharpest and most detailed images I have ever shot.
So what’s next? I’m currently on tour through Europe visiting familiar landscapes as well as some new ones. I have the Phase One with me and I can hardly wait to see the results when I get home and begin enlarging these images to prints. This camera system is able to capture the grand scenic landscapes in unprecedented detail and clarity. If only I could have had my hands on one since 1978.
When it comes to the big picture, Phase One wins out. ~Art Wolfe
Join me on the Phase One Digital Artist Series (PODAS) Workshop in Kimberley, Australia in June, 2013. >>MORE INFO
Maybe it’s time to think small, macro small. September and October in the Pacific Northwest present wet dew laden mornings which are perfect for photographing tiny intimate landscapes, insects in your garden, abstracting details of a flower into a wash of color, or a spider’s web suspending drops of dew.
When I talk about “macro photography” I’m not limiting myself to 1:1 or greater magnification. Macro to me is really anything that might fit in my 2 hands. A clump of clover or a close-up of a Macaw’s back showing detail in the feathers, fall into my definition of “macro photography” as does a butterfly’s wing or dandelion seed head filling the entire frame.
People often ask me what I would recommend for a macro lens and honestly I don’t generally carry one; they add too much weight for how often I find myself using one. Instead, I carry a set of extension tubes, practically weightless when compared to adding another lens to my bag, and at my age, less is definitely more (as in more walking, more shooting and more time out of the chiropractors office!)
I’ve asked Jay Goodrich to provide a few technical details on macro lenses and how extension tubes work:
To understand macro lenses you must first understand how a lens focuses on a subject. As you twist the focus ring, the glass optics inside move forward and back. Want to focus closer? Move the glass further from the sensor. Want to focus at 1:1 magnification? (1:1 happens when the object you are shooting is the same size on the sensor as it is in real life such as a quarter or butterfly’s wing filling the frame) Then your lens must be able to move the optics away from the sensor a distance equal to the focal length of your lens (This will vary based on the crop factor of your sensor). In other words if your 100mm lens can move 100mm from the sensor, you have a ‘macro lens’ able to focus close enough for objects to appear life size on the sensor. A 100mm macro lens will be able to achieve 1:1 (lifesize) at twice the distance from your subject than a 50mm macro lens would.
But what if your 100mm lens is not a “macro lens”? That simply means it is not able to move the optics a full 100mm from the sensor. Perhaps it can only move them 75mm and thus it can’t quite focus close enough to fill the frame with the butterfly’s wing. An extension tube is spacer that fits between your camera and lens and they come in various thicknesses. Having no glass at all they do not impact your image quality as a magnifying filter (also used for macro photography) would. So if you were to put a 25mm extension tube on the back of your “non macro” 100mm lens – you would then be able to achieve the full 100mm (75+25) of extension necessary to photograph your subject at 1:1 or 1x magnification.
So what does Art use in the field? He will add extension tubes between his 70-200 f4 lens. Without them, the lens has a minimum focusing distance of 1.2m and a magnification of .21x (about 1/5th life size). Adding a 25mm extension tube allows him to move in closer and achieve .42x life size. Stack additional extension tubes behind the lens and he’s able to focus even closer yet – all without adding an additional lens to his bag.
If you enjoy shooting macro subjects, an investment in a true macro lens is worthwhile. While extension tubes allow you to “make one” on the fly, they must be removed to allow the lens to again focus on distant objects and to infinity. You can even purchase a macro lens with enough extension built in to achieve up to 5x magnification – filling the frame with the eye of a praying mantis.
Most of the time stopping down to f22 and keeping your sensor plane parallel to your subject will give you enough depth of field to cover your subject. If not, you may need to “rack focus”, shooting several images with the focus point first on the leading edge of the subject with each subsequent image focusing a little further into the composition until you reach the furthest point you want in focus. Later you combine the images with Photoshop or Helicon Focus; the combined image will then look sharp across the entire scene from front to back.
I use macro photography to abstract the patterns, lines and texture found in nature; to give the viewer a different taken on an old subject. We’ve all seen photographs of flowers, force your audience to think a little, to tilt their head as they wrap their imaginations around your composition.
You can abstract just about anything you find in nature and even man-made objects. By framing tight on your subject you are able to show a pattern that is lost when looking at the whole. Your image allows a new appreciation for the subject which is unavailable without the photograph to isolate and show only what you, the artist behind the camera, is allowing the viewer to see.
Patterns come from the repetition of shape and textures, thus it is possible to get too close and not show enough of your subject, losing the magic of the pattern you had intended to show. If you love ferns for their delicate pattern of leaves, get in close, focus your attention on just one frond and enjoy the gentle curve of the main stem while playing with the beauty of the individual leaves branching out while ever decreasing in size to either side. A fully symmetric composition with the frond in the center makes a different, but equally effective statement as drawing the frond out of a corner diagonally, try it both ways to see what you like.
Sometimes if I am lacking for inspiration I’ll create a little vignette, a story, with the elements around me. On a beach I may grab some bits of seaweed, a shell, perhaps a dead crab or some muscles, and a bit of drift wood. I’ll loosely arrange these so as not to appear too deliberate or forced and play with the composition. This exercise can help to open me up to other options around me as I begin to see line and form that I may not have seen otherwise.
A good exercise for anyone, whether you are feeling stuck or full of inspiration, is to walk to a random spot, in your back yard, in the country, in the forest… and just stand there and take in the scene. Look all around you. It may take 15 min or it may take an hour, but you will begin to see opportunities on a macro, close up scale, which you may have overlooked in the past. The stained glass effect of a dragon fly’s wing, the rainbow of colors in a puddle, a sewer grate, the wabi sabi qualities of a dead leaf as it curls and browns. Photographic opportunities are all around if you open yourself to the possibility of seeing them.
Always keep a sharp eye for any distracting elements in the composition. Check each of the four corners for bright areas on the edges, twigs, dead leaves, hard edges. A grouping of pine needles close-up can make for an abstract of Japanese writing; a single pine needle in the corner can blow the whole composition.
As you head out to photograph the macro landscape, ask yourself about the difference between a tight shot of a flower that could be used in a botanical textbook as “figure 7.2”, and an artist’s abstract of that same flower. When you get in really close, can you start to see a Georgia O’Keefe or Claude Monet’s influence on the composition? Does the texture make you think of a pointillism painting where the entire scene is composed of dots of color? Go back and photograph those same flowers, mosses, and leaves you have shot so many times before, even those in your own yard, but do so through a new set of eyes, not looking to record nature but to abstract and challenge the senses of your viewer.
Dear Art Wolfe – I have long admired your images of stars and star trails and have tried in vane to take some images like this myself but just can’t seem to figure it out. Can you share some of your secrets?
Chris B.
Nebraska
Chris – I’d be happy to and it’s really not a big secret. When you are photographing stars and star trails at night, first figure out which type of composition you are looking to create – pin points of star light or the long streaks of star trails.
For pin points, set your shutter speed to 30 seconds, any longer and the points of light start to become ovals and the image takes on a blurry look-especially if you are including the Milky Way. Set your lens to it’s widest aperture, ISO 1600 or higher and expose. Noise in an image is most prevalent in the darkest areas, in photographing stars you will have a lot of deep dark areas between the stars so turn on your long exposure noise reduction to help minimize what gets transmitted to the image.
If you are shooting star trails, the elongated streaks of light that arc across the image, you will need much longer exposures than 30 seconds, namely 10 minutes on up to several hours, just exactly how long depends on the focal length of your lens and the effect you wish to create. Just as longer telephoto lenses will “magnify” movement, such as camera shake when you are trying to hand hold your camera, the longer the lens the less exposure time needed before you start to see effective star trails. Essentially the telephoto lens is zooming in making small things larger, so in as little as 5 minutes of exposure a 400 mm lens will yield short but definite star trails. With a wide angle lens, say 16 mm, you will need at least 30 minutes of exposure before you will begin to see decent star trails in your final image. For arcs of light that traverse the majority of the night sky you are generally looking at exposures of 2-5 hours.
In the days of slide film you would simply leave your shutter open for the entire exposure using the bulb setting to manually open and close the shutter and your wristwatch to time the event. However in the age of digital you can not leave the shutter open for that long without risk of damaging the sensor and an ever increasing build up of noise in the image. Rather than exposing for 2 hours straight, you shoot 240 thirty second exposures (to equal 2 hours) and then later “stack” them using any variety of software tools such as Adobe Photoshop or Imagestacker.
So how do you take 240 pictures over the course of a couple of hours? You could sit there with your cable release and click the button every 30 seconds, and if you only ever plan on trying this once perhaps that’s what you would do. However if this is something you would truly like to explore (and you won’t “get it” just trying it once) you should invest in a cable release called an Intervolemeter. This is essentially a computer that allows you to program the camera to shoot those 240, thirty-second exposures through the night while you get a little bit of sleep before setting up for the next shot.
The most important part of shooting stars is to pay just as much attention to what is on the ground as to what is in the sky. You will want to incorporate some interesting elements from the landscape around you, mountain peaks protruding into the sky, whole trees or tree branches, rock formations, saguaro cactus, etc… you need to tell the complete story so the viewer can appreciate not only the stars but where you were when you created such a striking image.
When including the foreground elements you have several choices as to how to handle them. First you can allow them to be silhouettes by simply photographing the scene after the sun has set using their forms as artistic elements in the image – this is perhaps the easiest and most common approach. The second approach is to begin creating your photograph prior to the setting of the sun, at dusk. Capture your lower foreground elements in an image at sunset and then leave the camera undisturbed on the tripod. Once the sun has completely gone and you are ready to shoot the star trails as before. Later in post processing when you are stacking your images together you will have the dimly lit view of the landscape to include in your overall composition. Now is this cheating? No. This is simply the same technique I have used for years with slide film when I would create a dual exposure on the same slide, one at sunset followed by a several hour exposure later in the night without moving the camera. Stacking is simply how you achieve the same result in the digital age due to the delicate sensor.
The last technique I have used involves artificially lighting the foreground elements in your landscape. Using a light source such as a flashlight, powerful search light or even a flash unit you can manually paint light over the foreground images during your 30 second exposures. It takes practice to go over the foreground elements just right, if you pass over an area too many times you will create a hot spot, miss an area and it will be dark, but when all you have is a flashlight to “paint with” there is nothing to tell you where you’ve been and where you have yet to go. So practice with this and over time you will be pleased with what you are able to paint in the dark. Here in the northwest snow camping is a popular winter time activity and lights inside of your tent or igloo make for wonderful glowing foreground elements in these compositions.
When shooting star trails you have two basic choices for where to point the camera. You can either create concentric circles of light around a single point in the sky by aiming at the the North Star (Polaris) for those photographing in the Northern Hemisphere, or arcs of light by pointing your camera in any other direction. Be aware of which you are choosing to compose and include your foreground elements for framing and balance accordingly. Unfortunately there is no convenient star in the southern hemisphere to point your camera directly towards so you’ll need to find that magic spot some other way.
Lastly there are some atmospheric conditions to be concerned with when photographing all night – namely condensation on the lens. I have shot start trails in many areas of the world such as the dry deserts of Utah and Namibia where condensation is not a concern but if you were to shoot them with say the sea stacks of the pacific coast you’ll be battling fogging on your lens throughout the night. One approach is to use a small battery operated fan to blow a steady wind across your lens to keep it dry. A second, perhaps easier approach, is to tape hand warmers around your lens, the kind hikers and skiers use. You’ll need several and they are only good for one night worth of shooting but they will help keep your lens warm and dry.
Lastly it goes without saying you need really dark skies. Pick a time when there is no moon or just barely a sliver and choose a location as far away and sheltered from the lights of near by cities as possible. For the pacific northwest where I live this means heading into the mountains, which make for great foreground subjects to include in the composition.
Enjoy your adventure – Art Wolfe
If you have a question for Art that you would like to see answered in an upcoming Newsletter email us putting “Ask Art” in your subject line: info@artwolfe.com
It is important to pay attention to foreground and background elements when trying to compose an effective surreal landscape image. Shot on location in Glacier Bay National Park.
Friend and fellow blogger Jim Goldstein has a new book (eBook) out that you should know about. We have featured a link on the side of our blog to go there and get this great new resource, or CLICK HERE.
Photographing the 4th Dimension – Time was created to inspire photographers creatively and technically through the exploration of slow shutter and video techniques. 7 creative photography techniques are discussed that in any other photography book might seem unrelated, but each provide the means to convey the passage of time in a manner that creates high impact imagery. Each section includes detailed tips, step-by-step instruction, gear & software recommendations. As a bonus there is even a field checklist to keep in your camera bag, so as to never miss an opportunity in the field. Techniques discussed include long exposures, light painting, star trails, cinemagraphs, time-lapse photography and more.
We are offering an expanded version of this popular class. Now Composing Effective Images will include a field session. February 3-5, 2012. The FIELD EDITION is available only in Seattle, WA.
For those who are ready to take the next step and work in the field with Art Wolfe, this class is perfect. It is a perfect transition from the classroom seminar that will better prepare you for an intensive field workshop. For the many who have already taken Art’s popular Art of Composition Seminar and would like to continue their photographic exploration with a master this is your perfect opportunity.
We are packing so much into this class, that Art will actually begin his first lecture at the opening reception in his home on Friday night.
>>CLICK HERE to learn more about this unique class.
By Art Wolfe with Jay Goodrich
