Photo Carousel #12: "San Angel Inn - Mexico Pavilion in Epcot"

"San Angel Inn - Mexico Pavilion in Epcot"

Here's my next Photo Carousel entry, "San Angel Inn".

One of the things that I've started to do lately is take photos of the cool places that my family dines while we're traveling.  I realized that eating is an important part of traveling, yet I rarely take photos of the restaurants that we stop at along the way.  This is a pretty big gap in the overall group of photos from any given trip because a lot of good times are shared.....while eating!  If you don't have a few photos of those dining stops, some of those memories can sometimes slip away...

With that in mind, on our recent trip to Disney World in Florida, I photographed each restaurant where we ate.  Some of the pictures are just casual snapshots to capture a moment, but the one above took a little bit of work to get right (and the subject deserved it).

If you've ever been to the Mexico Pavilion in the Epcot theme park, you can appreciate the work that went into it.  When you first enter the pavilion, there are displays of Mexican art and culture, and after you view that area and walk through the crafts section of the pavilion where artists are working on souvenirs, you enter a different (and dark!) world.

It takes your eyes some time to adjust to the darkness, but when they do you'll realize that you're standing in the center of a recreated Mexican town market with craft and artwork vendors, souvenir stands, people standing around shopping and having fun, and in the back....there's the San Angel Inn restaurant.

Off in the distance there's a scaled replica of a Mexican pyramid like those that you'll see at the Chichen Itza historical site in Mexico.  There's also a ride that has its entrance on the left side of the pavilion called "Gran Fiesta Starring the Three Caballeros".

This area is a visual feast, and it's so well done that it's easy to quickly forget that you're in Disney!  At the back of the pavilion is the restaurant in my photo above.  It's a large restaurant, but if you're thinking of going here for lunch or dinner, be warned that you absolutely will not get in without a reservation.  Plan ahead!

From a creative perspective, I was trying to capture the overall mood and size of San Angel Inn.  I feel that this photo does that by using a layered approach of showing the dining area in the front, the pyramid in the middle, and then beyond that is the background wall painting with the volcanoes.  The dining area where the tables are is somewhat more intimate and slightly darker than it appears in this photo.  I over-exposed this shot intentionally to show the detail in the seating area better, but you can still get the idea that each table is candlelit and relaxing (i.e., no overhead lighting).

From a technical perspective, the shutter speed for this shot was slow (about 1/25 second) to gather enough light from the dark scene to create a useful photo.  I didn't use flash because that would have ruined the mood of the photo.  Hand-holding was out of the question due to the low shutter speed, so I propped the camera on a railing and used the self-timer to steady it while framing the shot as best as I could.  There was nowhere else to put the camera, and that's why those two chairs are blocking the low part of the shot.  I couldn't reach over the railing to move them.

For me personally, this shot succeeds because it really captures the mood of the San Angel Inn and I think it conveys the thought of this being a relaxed place to sit and have a meal.  Because of the effort that I put into it, this photo turned out to more than just a travel snapshot.

Going back to the point that I made at the start of this post about capturing memories, just seeing this one photo reminds me of the mood and atmosphere that night at dinner, and the great time (and food!) that our family had there.

On a side note, if I do humbly say so myself, this photo blows away the official Disney photos of this restaurant that appear on their website at the links above!  Maybe I should sell it to them!  :-)
    

Photo Carousel #11: "Player in the Park"

Here's my next Photo Carousel entry, "Player in the Park".  Click the photo above to see it larger and read more about it beyond what I wrote below.  To see it even larger you can click on this link.

From a creative perspective, this photo was an exercise in compromises to get what I wanted from a candid situation.  So the point of this photo is to "work your subject" until you get the image that you want.

For this picture I wanted to hide most of the player's face while still getting most of the saxophone and the open music case in the photo.  Not easy to do.  Every way that I tried to reposition myself to improve the composition ended up putting another bad background element in the photo.

Ultimately, I comprised to get this composition and left to go back to our hotel.

The issue with the color version of this photo is......the color!  There's too much of it!  The grass behind him on the hill of the park came out very green.  And the red bricks on the ground in front of him were also pretty bright.  Yet I knew I wanted to do something with this photo...

Finally I hit on the idea of desaturating the whole image and leaving just him in color.  This achieved the effect I was looking for, which is to draw the viewer's eye to him and not the other elements that I couldn't get rid of.

In the end, it came out nice as an 8x10 print....but not before some coaxing to get its center of attention clearly defined.  It was a fun exercise playing around with this shot.  I wouldn't use this black and color technique often because it's kind of cliche in a way, but for this shot it worked.
 

Photo Carousel #10: "Boathouse Restaurant"

Here's my next Photo Carousel entry, "Boathouse Restaurant".

We spend some time almost every summer vacationing at Lake George in upstate New York.  It’s a terrific vacation place centered around the beautiful (and big!) lake with many water activities to enjoy and a nice town with a ton of restaurants and other land-based activities.

This is one of my favorite photos that I’ve taken of Lake George, and there’s not even much of the lake in it!  But it captures the spirit of the place for me and for that reason I consider it a successful photo.  I hope others enjoy it as well, even though it may not have the same emotional connection for you.  Click on the photo above to learn more about it…

From a creative perspective, there’s a lot going on in this photo to look at…which is precisely why I captured it.  It’s all “calm” stuff though, so it allows you the time to look around it to explore.

You have the overall scene itself of the restaurant and the reflections of the lights on the water.  I liked the colors there.  Their reach across the water was what initially grabbed me about this scene.  Then there’s the people eating in the upstairs alcove in the upper left.  The boats at the dock, the waitress in the red shirt all the way on the right, etc.  To me it says what it is:  A waterside restaurant, and to me they’re very relaxing.  A great way to spend an evening after a day on the lake.  Pull up to the restaurant, dock, and relax.

I took a number of shots of this scene as the sun was setting.  The most effective ones were after dusk when the lights of the restaurant impacted the scene.  For shots like this, it’s best to try to capture them while there’s a little bit of light left in the sky so it doesn’t appear as total blackness in the final image.  If I had waited just a few minutes longer, the blue sky would have turned black and that would have changed the mood of this scene in a direction that I didn’t want it to go.

I intentionally framed this with the restaurant at the top to allow the lights maximum room to spread across the water.  As I look at this I can almost hear the water lapping against the boats and the laughter of the people on the dock enjoying dinner.

What I really wanted to do was go back to shoot from this same location with a more telephoto lens on a night when the restaurant was more crowded so I could pick out scenes on the docks, in the upstairs bar, etc.  It would have been a cool vantage point to capture the hustle and bustle of the place on a busy night.  But I never got the chance to go back on this trip.  I’ll try again in the future.

Photo Carousel #9: "Going Home"

This is my ninth Photo Carousel entry, "Going Home".  If I do humbly say so myself, I really like this photo!  :-)

I took this out the window of a Singapore Airlines 747 on my way home from Germany to New York in March 2010.

We were flying straight into the sunset for a large part of this flight and I got some amazing photos out the window.  However, it was difficult to do it without getting reflections from the windows in the photos, especially when facing forward in my seat. 

So....I turned around to try to shoot backward and I saw this great shot.  The sky was perfect, I was able to get both engines in the photo while they were glowing in the sunset, and the ground is still visible in the dim light below.

Looking for a different vantage point from which to take photos (and some good luck with the light!) came together to make a cool photo!  

For this particular entry of Photo Carousel, I don't have a specific compositional or technical lesson that I'm communicating.  Instead, the point I want to make is a logistical one.  It's a lesson that I learned from one of my favorite photographers a long time ago, and even though it's somewhat common sensical, it really never occurred to me when taking photos.

The premise is simple:  As you're exploring a place or thing and spending time to photograph it, turn around in the opposite direction and explore further.  See if there are more photos to take of whatever you're photographing by simply changing your vantage point.

I can't even say the number of times I've done this and ended up with additional great photos that were taken in a location looking in the total opposite direction than I was originally looking.

During sunsets, at the beach, in the mountains, even at family parties.  Turn around and continue to look around.  You never know what you'll find!

Photo Carousel #8: "Glass Blower"

"Glass Blower"

Here's a hot shot (sorry, couldn't resist!) that I took at the Corning Museum of Glass.  This is my eighth Photo Carousel entry.

If you've never been to Corning area, I can say that it's a nice family trip with many things to see and do, especially considering its close proximity to the Finger Lakes region of New York.  We live far away from that area so it's a long drive for us, but we combine the trip to Corning with the July 4th Indycar race at Watkins Glen International Speedway.  We also do some hiking in Watkins Glen Gorge and rent a boat to go out on Seneca Lake for a 1/2 day.  A nice way to spend a few days...

While at Corning, I wanted to capture the spirit of the place....which is all about making glass and the skill and concentration required to do it.  There are many ways to capture that, but I thought this shot was a perfect opportunity.

My daughter got selected to be a in a glass breaking demonstration, and for her participation in the demo she won a small glass bud vase.  They mentioned when they gave her the prize that the man who made it would be doing a glass blowing demonstration just across the hall so we went over to see him.  I saw the opportunity for this shot developing so I quickly got ready for it.

From the creative perspective, I composed this shot to place the three major interest points (his face, his hand, the flame) in strategic locations to keep the viewer's eye bouncing around between them. I also wanted to create the black free space in the upper left to give the photo some room to breathe. There was no need to have anything in that part of the frame because it only would have distracted from the main elements.

I think this photo is successful and interesting because of it's simplicity. There are the three main elements within the frame that are closely tied together, and that's it.  The slow shutter allowed the flame to blur a bit to give the photo some dynamic quality. I spot metered off the glove.

My goal was to leave no question what this photo is about....intense heat, concentration, and the skill required for glass blowing.

Photo Carousel #7: "Milkweed In Cold Sunset"

Here's a nice shot taken at the Mohonk Preserve in New York when I was coming to the end of a great day of hiking with my daughter.  This is my seventh Photo Carousel entry.

I'm getting more comfortable executing these types of classic shots.  I used to struggle to find nice compositions like this with the right lighting elements, etc, but all of my practice is starting to pay off nicely because I'm "seeing" these scenes more easily these days.

As we came to the end of our hike, the sun was setting fast and we were almost back to the car. The temperature was dropping quickly through the mid 40's and into the 30's in what seemed like just a few minutes.  When we rounded the last turn in our trail and came to this open field, the sun was just finishing cutting across it with a great golden color.  The photographer's classic "golden light"...

My daughter (8 years old) is just learning to take photographs and I showed her how to get behind these milkweed to let the sun shine through them to make a nice effect. Her response was "Cool, that looks much better.  Thanks Dad!".  She went to take some photos of some other plants nearby that she liked and I stuck with these to try to get my shot....

From the creative and technical perspective, a number of things came together nicely here that I wanted to mention as a learning experience...

I composed the shot that I wanted with the two primary large fluffy weeds positioned near two intersecting "Rule of Thirds" lines.  Not right on them because I wanted to keep certain things out of the frame, but close enough.  Dividing up the frame in my mind in various ways and placing elements where I want them was the single biggest thing that I did years ago to improve my photography.

Interestingly, I originally framed this shot to cut out the two smaller weeds in the bottom left corner, but then I realized that their shapes echoed the two larger ones and I thought that was cool so I put them back in.

With the composition and the light in place, I was ready to shoot but something was still missing.  Warmth.  This scene needed some warmth.  I decided to wait for the setting sun to enter the top of the frame.  I knew that the small aperture I was using on my Canon S95 would get me some nice streaks of golden light across the frame. Patience paid off, and it worked perfectly!  I fired off a few quick shots at various zooms on this same scene just as the sun came into the frame and this is the one that I liked the best.

The scene is -2/3 stop underexposed to make the colors a little more rich.  A straight metering of the overall scene would have overexposed it due to the mostly darker field I was shooting, so I dialed in some negative exposure compensation.  Any time you want to make the colors in a scene like this a little more rich, just dial in -1/3 or -2/3 exposure compensation if the scene can take it without ruining the mood.

About one minute later the golden light completely ended as the sun ducked behind the hill. We were left out in the cold gray light of the rapidly approaching darkness to finish our walk to the car. 

We completed the day with a nice post-hike dinner in the town of New Paltz, NY at the Gilded Otter Brewery.  Another great day out with my family, during which I was able to snag some nice photos...

Photo Carousel #6: "Azure Moonrise"

"Azure Moonrise"

It was a great moonrise here in New York last night.  Cool, crisp, clean air and a full moon.  This is my sixth Photo Carousel entry.

I've taken various pictures of the moon over the years that have come out nice enough to wet my appetite to try astrophotography, but there's such a huge investment in equipment required to do it that I never get around to actually committing to it.  There are many other financial priorities around my house.....like eating! Maybe some day.... 

In the mean time, if you want to see some great deep space photos by a guy named Howard Cox, check out this link to some of his photos on the photo.net web site.

This type of moon shot is simple from a technical perspective.  Here are some tips:

1. Always shoot in the time between sunset and total darkness so that you pick up the remaining blue in the sky.  A moon picture with a totally black sky is boring....unless of course that's what you're intentionally trying to do for some other reason.
2. Expose for the moon.  You don't want it to be too dark or too light in your finished photo because it's your subject.  Let the exposure for everything else fall wherever it does, but get the moon exposed properly.
3. Use a long focal length.  This was shot on my Canon 7D with the equivalent of about 385mm on a 35mm body.  
4. Use a tripod.  If you're using image stabilized lenses, shut off the IS feature when you're using a tripod.
5. Use a remote release or your camera's timer to trip the shutter to minimize camera vibration. 
6. Use a shutter speed of around 1/200 (to prevent motion blur in the moon) and aperture of at least f/8 (to maximize image quality) and also ensure that you have enough depth of field to keep your foreground elements in focus.
7. Use a foreground element (and keep it in focus!) to add more interest to your photo.
8. Shoot in Raw format if your camera supports it.  It will provide you with the highest image quality.

For this composition, I used the arc of the tree branches to keep the viewer's eye from leaving the frame and also to create a little spot to put the moon in.  I chose this composition based on the simple rule-of-thirds principle because it suited this photo just fine.  This setup clearly places the moon as the center of attention. 

Try some moon shots...you'll get a kick out of it.  If you do the above steps properly and you're shooting with high quality equipment (and a lens of at least 400mm), you can actually view your photos quite large on your computer monitor and see a lot of detail on the moon's surface.  My kids were blown away when I showed them the detail on the moon's surface in one of my enlarged photos.

Photo Carousel #5: "Molten Sunset"

"Molten Sunset"

This is the fifth entry in my Photo Carousel series.  I call it "Molten Sunset" because it looks to me like someone dumped out a bucket of sunlight in the center of the frame and it's spreading across the sky.

This was one of the most impressive sunsets that I've seen in quite some time.  The pictures that I took in the other direction behind me were even more impressive from a color perspective, but this shot had the dramatic clouds in it so this is the one I chose to post.

I had just finished hiking to the top of a local mountain with my daughter and everything started to slowly glow yellow and orange.  The glow was unusually intense in both its brightness and the depth of color.  Seeing the low and diverse clouds, I knew that we might be in for something special.

My goals for this photo were simple:

1. Emphasize the clouds, especially the burning center section and the wispy one in the upper left corner.
2. Get the photo composed and exposed correctly in the camera to minimize any degrading effects of post-processing later.  I knew this shot would push the sensor in the Canon S95 hard.

From a compositional perspective, I didn't want to let the distant mountain range go to total black at the bottom of the frame but I had no choice.  To me, this was an acceptable compromise in order to get the clouds exposed properly.  I composed the burning sun area a little off center to make the photo more interesting.

From the technical side, I used evaluative metering and bracketed the exposure at -1/3, metered, and +1/3 and picked the best shot.  I took many different scenes of this sunset and the -1/3 shots were always the best because the colors were more saturated.  White balance was set to 'Cloudy'.

I consider this image a nice success because (in my humble opinion) I satisfied my two goals above and walked away with a nice keeper.  At the same time, I enjoyed the time with my daughter as we shared these moments together watching a sunset that was memorable to me even after all of them that I've seen, and for her it was probably her first truly amazing sunset.

Photo Carousel #4: "Artist"

"Artist"

This is the next installment in my Photo Carousel series.  I don't know what it is about this picture, but I really like it and wanted to post it here.

I've always been fascinated watching painters and sketch artists work.  It's amazing to me the way they draw a line, smudge it with their finger to make it softer (such as around the girl's cheeks, chin, and chest), outline edges in such a meaningful way, and breathe life into their pictures until they're done and you stand back and say "Wow!".

I was at an Oktoberfest celebration near my house recently and I saw this artist drawing this couple.  He was drawing them one at a time on the same sheet of paper and he didn't show it to both of them until he was done.  They loved it!

While I was standing there, I became intrigued with trying to capture him doing his work.  I had an idea for a great long exposure shot that would have showed his hands moving around the page while the rest of the picture was steady and sharp, but I didn't have a tripod with me.  So my next best idea was to show just his hands and the paper.  I thought this conveyed a slight sense of mystery to my photo because you know someone else is sitting there posing for him but you can't see them in my photo.

I wanted his hands and the all important pencil completely in the photo, but right at the edge of the frame to keep the viewer's attention inside the picture.

The main lesson I got from this photo was:  Keep your eyes open when you're walking around at special events!  Here I was drinking a beer and walking right by this cool scene and I almost didn't give it a second glance.  There are so many interesting opportunities like this if you just keep your eyes open.

From a technical perspective, this shot was simple.  I knew the camera would slightly under expose when it metered the mostly white scene, so I added +1/3 stop of exposure compensation to keep it bright.  I then had to further increase the exposure slightly more in Photoshop because it still came out a little underexposed.  I left the color balance the same because I like the glow of the tungsten light bulb that the artist was working under.  I thought it added some warmth to the otherwise mostly white feeling.

All in all, it's a shot that I like and it's another compositional and technical learning experience.

Photo Carousel #3: "Layers"

"Layers"

This is the third entry in my Photo Carousel series.  The autumn colors near me haven't been that great this year, so instead of looking up for compositions, I looked down.  That's how "Layers" came to life.  I shot these leaves as they were....I did not move them.  That's important to note for my explanation of how/why I took this photo below.

This photo is somewhat of a cliche.  We've all probably seen too many leaf pictures to count and the leaves may have been prettier than these.  But my Photo Carousel series is not necessarily about always presenting startlingly original or perfect images.  It's about presenting nice images AND explaining the thought process behind them to communicate and exchange ideas about composition, light, etc.

My goal for this image was to present layers of leaves in a way that would cause the viewer's eye to wander around the frame looking on top of and under the leaves to see what's there.  I think it succeeds in that goal because of three things:  careful composition, lighting, and exposure.

I positioned the two orange leaves and the opposing brown leaf carefully in the frame to counteract each other and set the overall tone for the image.  They also act like covers to the leaves under them and set the premise of what I was trying to do.  The brown leaf is in that location for a reason.  If you look carefully under the big brown leaf in the darker hole, there's just enough light under there to see more leaves.  That keeps the viewer's eye right in there looking around.  Same thing with the big orange leaf on the right.  I had to get the camera just low enough to get that effect while still being able to get the hand held depth of field that I wanted.  I could not stop the lens down to f/11 or further because I didn't have a tripod.  This kind of intentional composition and perspective control gives the image some depth, instead of just shooting a single leaf on a rock, for example.

These leaves were coming in and out of shadow from the clouds above, so I waited until some sun hit them from the side to light them up.  Careful metering let them go right to the edge of their luminosity without over exposing anything.  I dialed in +1/3 exposure compensation because the scene was so bright that I knew the camera would try to under expose it.  It was shot with 'Daylight' white balance to keep the colors more true.  If this was shot in 'Auto' white balance, the colors would probably have been considerably more bland and neutralized by the camera.

All the time I was taking this picture, my daughter who I was hiking with was saying, "Dad....Come on!  Let's go!".  I told her to be patient for a minute and I would show her why later.

When I opened up the picture large on my wide screen computer monitor, she smiled and said, "Wow!  That's neat!".  When I showed her the leaves hidden under the brown and orange leaves, she said "That's cool, I never would have noticed that when I saw you taking this".

And I guess that's the point of this picture.  To look around a little bit and notice things that you wouldn't ordinarily give a second glance to.  And then perhaps spend some time with your camera thinking about how to use composition, light, and exposure to make a photo that, although it might be a little bit cliche because of the subject matter, also has some hidden elements that can bring about a smile when people discover them.  And don't worry about getting your pants dirty when you get down on the ground!  :-)

Photo Carousel #2: "Portrait of a Lighthouse"

"Portrait of a Lighthouse"

This is the next entry in my Photo Carousel series....It's an interesting photo to post for people to check out because most of the feedback that I've received on it to date before putting it up here has been negative.  People weren't quite sure what it was or what the perspective and viewpoint were.  I would be interested to hear what people here think...

I climbed to the top of Fire Island Lighthouse in New York on a recent hike out there. Taking a 360 degree look around from the top for possible photo opportunities, I was struck when I turned around and saw this shadow portrait of the lighthouse. Serendipity strikes! A unique photo of a lighthouse without even having the lighthouse in the frame!   In addition to the shadow, I was also struck by the myriad of different green trees below with a touch of blue pine in there as well.

From a learning perspective, I composed the shot to have the wooden walkway cutting through the picture in an interesting way and exposed the picture carefully so as to not blow out the detail of the whiter boards on the path.  I knew the darker foliage and lighthouse shadow would cause a straight forward meter reading to overexpose, so I dialed the meter reading back by 2/3 stop.

Even though not many people like this photo, I stick by it because it has an interesting element to me.  The feedback I've already received was interesting and will make me think about some other possible options the next time I try this type of shot. 

Any feedback that anyone has is welcome....Thanks!

Photo Carousel #1: "Slam Allen"

"Box of Tricks"

This is the first image that I'm posting as part of my "Photo Carousel" feature.  I'll occasionally grab an image that I've recently taken and put it up here with an explanation of what I was trying to achieve, and how.  Through this process, I hope to communicate important tidbits of shooting knowledge that I've accumulated over the years.  If you like the photos, please comment.  Thanks!

I call this picture "Box of Tricks".  When I was on a cruise recently, the Slam Allen Blues Band was playing each night in a great little blues club on the ship.  When I took my camera one of the nights that we went to see them, I decided to shoot a series of "concert atmosphere" photos where I took pictures of the musicians, what they were doing, and their instruments but didn't include any faces or large sections of body.

In this shot, I wanted to emphasize the lights on the Marshall amplifier, the guitar, the pedal board at Slam's feet, and most importantly the little box in the left side of the frame in the orange light.  I was not interested in exposing for the shadows because I wanted them to go dark, so I metered off the light parts of the scene and let the rest go almost black. 

Every time Slam reached into that little box and pulled out a new pick or slide, he sounded like he was playing better than the song before so I called it his "Box of Tricks".

This photo is intentionally dark and you have to look at it to see what's going on, but that's precisely the point.  My goal was to highlight the equipment and make you wonder......."What's in that little box"?  This is a good example of using exposure to control what the viewer looks at in the image.