Mr. & Mrs. Link

It’s the home stretch!  Only two months to go, and in stark contrast to last month, October provided a cornucopia of photographic opportunity.

Against the backdrop of autumn in the East, this month I shot another wedding (I’m getting so much more comfortable both with the gear and the pressure – this one was actually fun!) and spent more than a week on the campaign trail in Montana.

Perhaps most significantly, I found the new challenge to quicken the final 65 days: I want to dramatically improve my portrait skills.  This meant asking a lot of friends – and some strangers too – to pose for me.  Mostly, I shoot portraits with my 50mm Prime because the quality is so good and I can open the aperture way up to minimize the depth of field.  While I’ve generally shot only in available light, I’ve begun to understand the concept and importance of a fill-light and in several instances made pretty awesome pictures because of it.

I’ve focused so much on the inanimate that my person photography skills have fallen behind.  For the rest of the year, I intend to change that.

There were a lot of honorable mentions this month: Atop the Dome, Hart Stairwell, Study Break, Lampset, Old Cowboy, Big Sky and Hayloft Saloon.  Between those and the Top 3, fully one out of three shots I took this month I was pleased with.  That’s not bad!

October’s Third Best: Morning Calm

Whitefish, Montana is one of the most beautiful places in the world.  At the foot of the Mission Mountains an hour outside of Glacier National Park, it invokes what it must be like to live in the Alps (I wonder if people who live in Europe ever talk about visiting the Rockies…).

I came across this shot as our campaign bus parked just across a bridge for an early-morning rally.  It was chilly and the steam was still rising off the water.  There was also a leaf-strewn dock which gave the scene a very spooky feel to it, but for the house and car across the river that sort of spoiled the scene.  Later there were ducks, but the flat light and mist tripped up the auto-focus.

In this shot, I closed the aperture down and held the camera steady at about water level for the relatively long exposure.  The leaves and log in the foreground give it a really good sense of depth.

October’s Second Best: Chesapeake and Ohio Canal

One of the first hikes the Links took out here was along the C&O Canal near Great Falls in Maryland.  It’s a bit strange because you get to hike in beautiful country only a few minutes outside of the urban center of Washington, D.C.

This Sunday was very crowded with hikers and bikers.  We’d hiked on the other side already, with the sun on the opposite bank, so on the way back, I wanted to take the main trail so the sun would be at my back.

When this canoe slowly framed up perfectly between the trees, I knew it was going to be the shot of the day.  As an interesting aside, the pool he’s in is also where Adam taught us to do bow-rolls in a kayak.  Adam was present for the shot with his son.

October’s Best: Jester

As I have grown more comfortable shooting weddings, the major shortcomings (nerves, technical know-how, using the pro-cameras) have declined and another deficiency has surfaced.  People.  I’m great at framing a shot if nothing is moving, but I’ve not developed the same skill for people.  My “good shot rate” (the percentage of pictures I’m happy with out of the total number of shots taken) is much lower with people, and many of those shots tend to happen accidentally.  So I decided to make that my mission for the remaining quarter of 2010.

One of the big differences in shooting a person compared with a sunset is that you don’t have to ask the sunset permission or worry that the sunset will be uncomfortable.  I’m usually a people-person, but for some reason, I’ve had a tough time asking people to let me shoot them.  I think it’s the concern that they’ll think I’m being perverted or something.

That has started to change, and this Jester from the Maryland Renaissance Festival in Annapolis was a major step.  Obviously, he’s a performer, so posing for the camera is what he does, so it was a good transition.

Since then, I’ve gotten much more confident asking people – even strangers – to pose.  Sometimes I get strange looks, but usually people are happy to oblige.  I just need to get cards made so I can seem more like a photographer and less like a stalker.

Last thing.  I tend to shoot portraits in landscape format instead of portrait.  I suppose there’s a reason they call the vertical format “portrait”…

October’s Worst: Early Voter

There’s a pretty standard template for each month’s “worst” photo.  A cool event or thing that’s not photographically interesting.  In this case, my neighbor, who I had just dragged to the polls for the first time in his life.

Also, as “worst” pictures go this year, this one isn’t so bad.  I even improved it by using a fill-flash!