Shooting in crappy lighting - lessons for life and photography...

 

I am sure everyone has heard the proverb that the Chinese Character for crisis, or challenge, is also the character for opportunity. I will leave the debate over this fortune cookie wisdom’s linguistic truth to others more versed in Chinese to discuss. I prefer the attitude of an old college roommate and amazing pool shark, “there is always a shot on the table, even if it isn’t easy or one you can make.” However you choose to look at it, when faced with a bad situation you have two choices: give up and go home or power through and try to find a solution. Recently, I was faced with such a situation. So here is my chronicle of an evening of despair behind the viewfinder and how I got through it.

       

In addition to being a photographer and Naval Officer, I am also a circus performer, instructor and rigger. In early March I was hired to set up an aerial performance rig as part of the 2014 HillCrest Fat Tuesday parade and block party. The person that set the gig up knew I was a photographer and invited me to stick around and shoot the event as well. I knew I was going to have to go straight from my ship to the location to set up before the start, so the night before I packed everything I was going to need into my truck. Since I had done a shoot the day before, I pulled the battery from Excalibur and threw it on the charger to make sure it was full. The alarm went off at 0430, I rolled out of bed and headed into work. Did my day’s work for the Navy, got off the ship and headed to the block party to set up. I tend to expect disorganization in most events like this, and I was not surprised. The area they had allocated for the aerial rig was way too small and the fire marshal said we had to move. So we swapped locations with another exhibit. This wouldn’t have been an issue except that the new location did not have the lighting we were counting on to cover the aerial performers. More on that later, but we got the rig set up, I went to grab some dinner, then went to grab the camera from the truck and get set up to shoot. OOOPS! Turns out that 0430 in my caffeine deprived state, I forgot to grab the battery (and attached battery compartment cover) from the charger and put it back in the camera.  Crap. D4 is out of the picture. What about my backup camera- nope, still in the trunk of my daily car, where it lives so that I will always have a camera with me just in case. At this point, I was tired and already frustrated from dealing with the festival coordinator and the fire marshal and had no working camera, so I decided to say screw it, give up on shooting and go grab a beer because I was stuck until the event ended and I could take the rig down.

LESSON ONE: When you feel like you are stuck in a bad situation with no solution, grab a beer. You can take that literally, like I did, or metaphorically. Get out of the situation, step back, relax a bit, and distract yourself while letting the problem percolate around in the back of your head. While I was enjoying my beer, I realized that I had my spare battery in my bag, but still no compartment cover. I took this further, and figured there were no electrical contacts on the cover, so theoretically all it did was hold the battery in place… so what if….. a couple of strips of gaffers tape later and I once again had a functional camera with which to shoot the evening. Semper Gumby.

First problem solved, next issue was the complete lack of light. Despite the awesome low light capabilities of the D4, there wasn’t enough light to effectively shoot the performers. To get high enough shutter speeds to freeze them in motion I would have had to bump the ISO up so high that my noise removal software wouldn’t be able to save them. That left adding my own light, which meant flash.

LESSON TWO:  Sometimes you have to break your own rules.  I am against use of flash to shoot circus performers, sometimes loudly so. Mainly because it can be dangerous for the performers, but also because usually the show lights, even if they are not terribly bright, are designed for a purpose and a mood and using flash kills that ambiance. In this case that argument didn’t apply because there was no lighting or ambiance to distract from, so I just had to make sure my flash use wasn’t going to be a distraction or hazard for my performers.

Once those two issues were resolved in my head and I had gotten over my initial horror at having to use a flash, the next problem was how to keep my pictures unique and make them look different from the pictures of literally dozens of other photographers just blasting away.

My first thought was to adjust the flash power down to a low as I could take it while still getting a useable image, which would keep my shots from having the typical blown out flash look.

LESSON THREE: Change your perspective, I noticed everyone was basically standing on the same line on the same side of the rig to shoot, in the typical audience position. I, on the other hand, was free to move around and change angles as I wanted to. So I decided to get creative and shoot the scene from an unusual perspective. These were a few of my favorite flash shots.

       
Another thing I got the chance to play with was adjusting flash exposure on the fly. A pole dance studio was set up and performing right next door to the aerial rig. Since I was shooting manual flash in order to dial it down controllably and consistently, and the aerial performers and the pole dancers were at different distances from me, each time I swung from one to the other I had to adjust my exposure. Adjusting flash power was too much of a pain to do each time, soI played with flash ev comp but also found that to be not intuitive, since on the D4 it requires both a button and a dial so is a two handed operation, which kept me from zooming as necessary to recompose, so what worked well was adjusting aperture. It was a single dial, so I could open up a stop or so while I was recomposing between the two areas and once I got my exposure set for each shot it was consistent as long as I didn’t move, so it was a simple operation.

Of course, once I was dialed in and at least not totally depressed by my flash shots, things changed and another “opportunity” presented itself. The festival staff, realizing that no one could see the aerialists, got someone to swing a floodlight on a nearby tower to point at the rig.  So, now there was plenty of light on the performers, but it was all sidelight

and it was about as ugly a light quality as anything I have seen before. (note- I am specifically referring to the light, not the gorgeous pole dancers I am taking another opportunity to show here)

About the only good thing I can say about it was that at least I didn’t have to burn through flash batteries anymore. My creative challenge again was how to get unique and maybe even good shots using the horrid floodlight. Other than correcting white balance in post, the best solution I found was to go back to LESSON THREE and change my perspective. I figured that what was a strong sidelight would also make for a good backlight and let me get some interesting silhouettes. It was a challenge moving quickly enough to keep the light blocked by the moving aerialists’ body and to keep focus against the strong backlight, but these also turned into some of my favorite shots of the evening.

 If you were expecting concrete answers to specific crappy lighting solutions you may face in your shooting, sorry. This turned out more general in nature and as I finish up and look back, it seems like my advice really is more of a mindset for dealing with bad situations not only in photography but also when life throws significant challenges your way. So here is the summary of my advice for when you face any sort of challenge in your shooting or in your life:

STEP 1 – Take a break, move back and give yourself some space to look at the bigger picture, or even worry about something else and let your subconscious work on the original problem. Stay open to new ideas that may come up and ways to turn the challenge into an opportunity.

STEP 2 – Accept change, a challenge is an opportunity only if you are willing to change your usual routines and the way you always do things. Once you accept this and become willing to break your own rules, you become open to new creative possibilities.

STEP 3 – Change your perspective. This is similar to the previous step. In photography it’s fairly literal, change your shooting position, lens, etc. In life it could be literal or more metaphorical. The key is that if you always approach something the same way, you will always get the same result. If you want to change your results, or get results that are different from everyone else’s, you have to approach from a new, unique direction.

That’s pretty much it, those three steps represented what I took away from working through a rough night. I can’t guarantee success even if you always follow the steps above. Not all the shots I took were winners and I don’t really think any of the ones I got are works of art. But what I can guarantee is that if you don’t try anything, you will fail. If I had given up when I realized I had forgotten the battery, or when I saw how bad the lighting was, I wouldn’t have gotten any shots at all. Pushing through allowed me to practice things I don’t do often, pick up some new skills, expand my creative perspective and get some shots that I do really like, so it was definitely worth the effort.

As always, you can view the full gallery either on my full site or on FaceBook. As always, enjoy and feel free to provide any feedback or commentary.

Gear Review - Optech Rainsleeve aka- the camera condom

   Let me start with a little disclaimer- I live in San Diego. This means it rains maybe one or two weeks out of the year. I grew up in New Orleans, so I know what weather and real thunderstorms are like, San Diego just doesn't really have them. That being said, it finally got a little drizzly this past weekend so I can review my Optech USA rain sleeve. 

   Before the weather system moved in, I had a model lined up to do a pinup shoot on a beach with an antique fire truck. For some reason, the fire fighters didn't want to take their antique truck out in the rain, so that shoot got cancelled, but the model still wanted to play, so we headed out to Balboa park, figured a rainy day would be a good day to play in the fountains. 

  Excalibur is pretty well sealed, wasn't worried about the camera or my lenses in the rain, the wild card was my flash, I have no data whatsoever on the durability of my SB910 or Mittros flashes other than the fact that they have taken a bit of sea spray fine in Hawaii. But no fear, I had my rain sleeve from Optech, which I got before a trip to New Orleans, but didn't wind up needing then. 

  My model was worried about her outfits being a little "skanky," I told her that was ok because my camera had a condom- which is basically what the Optech rain sleeve boils down to. 

   There are two versions of the rain sleeve, the regular and the flash model, I went for the flash model, as seen above. There are no instructions in the two pack, just two rain sleeves. Took me a second to figure it out, there is an opening on the side where the bottom of the camera winds up, and a hold with a drawstring where the lens goes. The trick that took me a second to get is that to put this on, you put the flash on the camera body, then remove your lens. Insert the camera/flash combo into the main part of the sleeve, then insert the lens through the lens opening and attach it to the camera body. This is not as easy as it sounds because the plastic had a tendency to get caught in the lens mount, but with a little practice I don't think it would be too hard. Once the lens is on, cinch the drawstring down around the lens hood to seal it up. 

   This is the first minor issue I had with the sleeve- the drawstring was stupidly long, not a problem if you only shoot horizontal and never move your camera, but if you are running and gunning and shifting from horizontal to vertical a lot, you need to either tie the excess drawstring out of the way or stuff in back inside the sleeve, otherwise you may wind up with drawstring in your shots. 

   The second issue is lens selection. As you can see above, I used to 70-200mm and had some sleeve to spare. Not sure what the largest lens this will fit is, the site lists measurements, not actual lenses, but there was some excess with my 70-200. I think I could have made it work with my 24-70mm but anything shorter, like my 50mm or the 18-55mm kit that came with my D3200, would have been wayyy to short for this sleeve to work easily.

   Once the sleeve was on, operation was easy, right hand goes into the bottom of the sleeve to work camera controls, left hand runs zoom through the bag. Flash was completely unaffected, if there was any diffusion effect or loss of light from the sleeve I couldn't notice it. Looking through the viewfinder was also not an issue with the sleeve in place, it was slightly more trouble than without the sleeve, but not so much that I noticed after the first shot or so. 

   What did become an issue was chimping on the LCD screen. The cover fogged up a bit after a few minutes of shooting, and to effectively view the LCD screen, either to see the histograms or to show the model how things were looking, I had to pull the cover up and over the LCD because it was difficult to impossible to effectively see the screen through the sleeve. Not a big issue for me, but if you shoot primarily live view or video this could be a show stopper for you. 

   So-  verdict on the Optech Rain Sleeve? It did as advertised, kept my camera and flash dry and let me get some shots in a rare spate of pretty nasty weather. 

    I have not used other more expensive rain protection, like the Think Tank line, so I cannot speak to the comparison other than generally. If you live or work somewhere such that you have to deal with inclement weather on a regular basis, you should probably look to one of the more hard core protective systems like the Think Tank one. On the other hand, if you are like me and live somewhere that 51 weeks out of the year you don't have to have a care in the world for the weather, save your money and go for the Optech. It is comparatively cheap, is easier to use than kludging together a set of ziplock bags, and it does the job. The one other bonus is that it is transparent - if for some reason you haven't been shooting long enough to memorize all your camera's controls and operate them by touch, the optech lets you see what you are doing. Is it perfect- no, but it works. Make sure it will fit your camera/lens combo, buy a two pack, shove it into a corner of your camera bag, car or wherever, and forget about it until you need it, then it will give you the confidence and feeling of security you need to bring your camera out to play when the weather gets nasty. 

   Conclusion- Pros who regularly shoot in inclement weather will probably want something more robust. Part timers or pros who don't frequently need protection from the elements should consider spending the $8 to put a set of these in your bag. They don't take up much more space than a set of filters and will get you through a rainy day that catches you by surprise.