Shooting festivals

I love festivals. Both as a photographer and just to go along to. They always seem to bring out the best in people and the party atmosphere is always contagious.

It's not long now till I head off to photograph Sapporo's big snow festival so to get into the mood I've decided to post some festival pics over the next few days and talk about what's involved.

The first thing you want to do is see if you can get a Press pass. Even if you're not shooting for a job you can often make enquiries to the organisers and they can see about getting you some access to places the public can't go.

That's what I did for the Yosakoi Festival. It's a giant street party where groups of dancers compete against each other while walking in a big circuit around the main streets of central Sapporo.

Having a press pass meant that I could walk in amongst the dancers, stand in the middle of the street and just about go anywhere to get the angle I wanted which was fantastic. The only thing you had to be careful of was that you didn't get in the way of either the dancers or the other photographers and TV crews.

If you can't get a pass make sure you get to any parade an hour or so before it's due to begin. The dancers will all be there ready to start and you can get lots of portraits before the parade proper starts.

Shooting at night like this you can't really use a tripod. Unless you're going for a blurred motion effect you usually want to freeze the action. In conditions such as this it often means waiting for a lull in the movement. Like this shot here where the dancer held this pose for a couple of seconds. How do you know when there's going to be a lull?

You don't! And that's the beauty of digital. You just shoot and shoot and shoot and see what comes out. You can try and predict peak moments of action, make sure you always have the camera up to your eye so that you can get the shot (if you see it with your naked eye by the time you get the camera up it's too late) and then let her rip. You can rest your arms when the action dies down!

Using a flash also helps freeze the motion. Here's the problem though. You'll be shooting under artificial lighting - usually some sort of yellowish halogen type thing. Your flash pumps out a white light. That means that everything in range of the flash will look a sickly white colour whilst everything outside the range of the flash will be a nice warm orange. The solution is to put a piece of orange cellophane over your flash. That will turn the colour of your flash the same as the surroundings.

Just remember that if your camera is in Idiot Mode it will default to something like 1/60th second. If you're in a place that is darker than that your background will turn out pitch black. So you need to shoot in either Aperture Priority or fully Manual. I usually just put my camera in Manual mode, set the shutter speed for about 1/15th second or so and leave my aperture at f8 and take it from there.

And if you shoot in RAW (which I recommend you always do) you can fine tune the white balance afterwards. Remember you'll need a higher ISO to help freeze the motion and let your background burn in.

Monday's link on Tuesday

Well seeing as yesterday was a public holiday for those of us here down under - Australia Day, I had the day off to play with the kids. So it's a Tuesday link.

I'm sure it's the same for many people starting photography. You see an image that simply amazes you. An art form that you may have never considered before suddenly seems to be something so incredibly powerful that you feel inspired to try it yourself. To emulate the work of a great photographer.

And for each of us that photographer is going to be a different person. For me that first great inspiration, and a continuing gauge for how I see my own work is Steve McCurry. For some of you the name might not be familiar, but I'm sure his most famous image is.

Remember the Afghan girl on the cover of National Geographic? The one with the incredible green eyes, harrowed look on her face and her torn shawl. That's his.

And can I let you in on a little secret? I don't really like his portrait stuff as much as I love his street documentary work where he shows how people live. He mostly works in South Asia - India, Pakistan and Afghanistan - but has recently been working on a body of work photographing Buddhism around the world.

I have always been fascinated by Buddhist culture and feel a great affinity for its practitioners wherever I go so that's probably one reason I love his work so much. Another is his use of natural light and a simple colour palette. The man is a true artist and as long as he keeps on putting out big glossy books Amazon will be getting my dosh! (money for those non-Australians)

If you get just one book of his get South By South East - you will love it.

Paul Dymond live chat

Hi there everybody,

just wanted to let you know that I'll be doing a live chat on Nine MSN next Tuesday night, the 27th January. I'll be filling in for a friend of mine who couldn't make it and would love it if you could pop along.

It will be from 6-7pm Cairns time (so that's 5-6pm Sydney summer time) which is 10 hours ahead of Greenwich mean time.

You can find more info here so if you get a chance to pop along and ask a few questions please do.

Keeping the slate clean

When you live and photograph in a concrete jungle you can pretty much walk and photograph wherever you like without fear of the dreaded footprint!

You know the footprint I mean. The one that magically appears right in the middle of a pristine landscape and totally ruins your picture. The one that transforms your untouched wilderness photo into a degraded vision of its perfect self.

And what makes it even worse is that footprint is often your own! So when you're photographing on the beach, or in the snow, you need to be very careful to walk only in places where you don't think you're going to point your camera.

Remember how I'm always harping on about looking behind you for different compositions? If everything behind you is blighted by big ugly boot prints you won't be a happy camper.

When I'm photographing on the beach I make sure that I walk along the beach as far away from the water as possible. Up in the really soft, dry sand, which is already pretty messed up anyway and my footprints don't really stand out.

Most beach shots happen down near the water anyway so as I walk along I keep an eye out for an area that might be nice to photograph. Then I walk in a straight line down to the water's edge, looking for compositions as I go.

When I've got what I want I walk straight back up the path I took, pretty much stepping in my own footprints. That way I have pristine beach to my left and right and have more options for compositions. (Of course if I turn around and look back to where my footprints came from and see something I like I'm in trouble but we won't worry about that! :) )

Try it next time you go to the beach. Walk along it as far away from the water as you can, up in the dry part, and only head down to the water when you see a spot for a great shot.

Of course if somebody else walks along the beach there's nothing much you can do except hope they have bare feet, a nice footprint, and a gait that will make a nice composition. Happy beach shooting.

Have your camera at the ready

I posted this photo today because as I sit here sweltering in the middle of a Cairns summer it reminds me that in a couple of weeks I'm going to be freezing my bum off in Japan!

I'm headed off to photograph the snow festival in Sapporo before heading to Osaka and Tokyo and it's going to be really, really cold.

But that isn't the topic of today's post. Today is all about carrying your camera with you and making sure you're ready to take a photo at the drop of a hat.

I was walking to the bus stop near my father-in-law's place, heading in to town to photograph the city when I came across this scene. Now maybe if you live in a cold place this doesn't seem so amazing to you but it really surprised me.

I just figured the snow ploughs would fill up at a depot or something, not next to the average joe filling up his sedan. Anyway he was just about full when I rushed over and managed to snap one shot before he put the pump away.

I conveniently had my camera hanging from my neck, as I often do when walking around. Even though my destination was half an hour away on the train I still had my camera out just in case. And in this case it paid off. Japan is a really safe country so there's no worry about theft - my biggest worry was slipping over on the icy footpaths and smashing my camera!

If you're somewhere where you don't exactly want to advertise the fact that you've got an expensive camera you can always carry it under your jacket, or in an easily accessible bag. When I am photographing on the street I often use my Lowepro Off Trail 2 and carry one camera body, a 10-22mm wide angle, a 28-70mm and a 70-200mm zoom, as well as a flash and a couple of polarising filters.

Just remember that when you have your camera in a backpack that will take you at least a couple of minutes to get the bag off, unzip it and then get your camera out - well that lucky shot has almost certainly gone. As the scouts say - be prepared!

When you have no time!

I was in Melbourne for an awards night and AGM for the Australian Society of Travel Writers a little while back.

When you have a whole bunch of travel writers together in the one place the various tourism bodies tend to organise trips for people to get a feel for the venue.

I signed up for a city sports tour that ended with a trip to the amazing Eureka tower with its spectacular views out over the city.

At least the writers were able to write about the fantastic views. As a photographer a pretty cloudy day, with a fair dash of smog meant that I couldn't really do justice to it at all. I tried a couple of snaps through the thick glass but the time of day, combined with the crappy light meant that there was nothing much I could do.

How many times have you been there? Whenever we travel on an itinerary that doesn't have photography as its main objection we end up having to compromise. To resign ourselves to the fact that we might not be able to get the shot we want. The one we saw in the postcard.

So that leaves us to find other compositions. It's really important to not put your camera away until you're well and truly finished. As I found out here. We had our views and were heading back to the elevator when I turned around and saw how the beautiful afternoon light was shining in and silhouetting people, while creating long shadows.

I already had a wide-angle lens on, so I took an exposure reading outside the window so that you could see the city beyond without it being a white blur and let the shadows fall to black. Then I walked around with the camera to my eye while I composed the scene until I liked the look of the shadows and quickly took the shot before heading off.

It isn't a stand-alone photograph that says Melbourne, or even the Eureka tower for that matter. But I like it as a piece of photographic art and it could certainly make it into a photographic story about Melbourne if you combined it with other images.

Remember that postcards are always taken under the optimum conditions - in terms of lighting, time of day and season. Your chances of being there under similar conditions are pretty slim so you need to keep your eyes open for new, unexplored angles and compositions.

Monday's link

The biggest thing in the world of photography right now is off-camera small flashes. Taking those small flashes that usually live in the hot shoe on top of your camera and using them wirelessly.

Put the flash wherever you want and have the camera fire it! I used this technique to photograph butterfly researcher Darrell Kemp at work.

Presented with a boring old room with equally boring fluorescent lighting I decided to take a small flash and put a piece of orange cellophane in front of it and move it a couple of feet to the left of the camera.

I then put a snoot on it to focus the light on Darrell's face and create the shadow, while dialling down the ambient to make it nice and dark.

All sound like gobbledygook? Don't worry it did to me too at the start but now I love it! To get started in this amazing world head over to Strobist and check out the Lighting 101 tips. Just a word of warning - it's addictive and I take no responsibility if you spend hours on this site!