Photo insights june '17

Jim Zuckerman’s

PH OTO I N S I G HTS June 2017

Mosaics Camera setting priorities Wide angle lenses: the Conundrum Travel photographer’s survival guide Photo tours Ask Jim Student showcase

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Mosaics Camera setting priorities Wide angle conundrum What’s wrong with this picture?

Short and Sweet Ask Jim Photo tours Travel photographer’s survival guide 37. Student showcase 42. Back issues 22

On the cover: Someone forgot a puppy in a shopping bag in London (not really -- it’s a composite). This page: Irridescent bubbles on a black sand beach in New Zealand reflecting Jim as he leaned down to take the shot.

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here is a lot of concern, understandably so, among photographers with some of the new airline restrictions regarding security. Some airlines are restricting, or being forced to restrict, what you can carry on the plane. The items in question are cameras, lenses, laptop computers, iPads, game players, and Kindles. This is a devastating blow to all passengers, but especially travelers with expensive camera and computer equipment who need to protect their gear from loss, theft, and damage.

I spoke to Delta Airlines about this and have read what TSA has stated, and at least my fears have been somewhat allayed for now. The ban applies to flights leaving from 10 airports bound for the U.S. : (AMM - Jordan; CAI: - Egypt; IST - Turkey; JED and RUH - Saudi Arabia); KWI - Kuwait); CMN - Morocco); DOH - Qatar; DXB and AUH - United Arab Emirates. The airlines departing from these airports that are affected are: Emirates, Etihad Airways, Qatar Airways, Kuwait Airways, Royal Jordanian, Saudi Arabian Airlines, EgyptAir, Turkish Airlines, and Royal Air Maroc.

In additon British Airways is complying with the new restriction regulations on flights departing from Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Turkey and landing in the U.K.

The way you can circumvent the ban on carrying electronics on board (at least for now) is to avoid these airlines altogether, or if you are flying from one of the named Middle Eastern airports into Europe (except the UK) or Asia, change airlines for the final leg of the flight back to the U.S. or U.K. For example, if you are flying out of Cairo on EgyptAir to Paris, switch to Delta, American, or United for the flight to the States. Don’t take a non-stop from any of these airports into the U.S. or you will be subject to the ban on electronics.

You can read more about this online HERE. Jim Zuckerman www.jimzuckerman.com photos@jimzuckerman.com 3

MOSAICS T

here are many types of mosaic images and various ways to achieve them.

This article discusses two types: one of them is free while the other one uses software that costs only $30.

The free method

The differences between the two are: The free method is low resolution and uses computer generated abstracts to define and comprise the final mosaic. The software you pay for gives you high resolution results and the photos used to make up the mosaic come from your own photo library.

http://ericandrewlewis.github.io/emoji-mosaic/

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The Emoji Mosaic is extremely easy to use (really). It is entirely an online tool, and it is accessed with this link:

Click the tab that says Choose File (red arrow on page 6) and browse to select one of your images. It can be a jpeg, a tif file or a psd file, and it can be any resolution. Make sure it doesn’t

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have any layers or channels. Within seconds of selecting the image, it turns into a mosaic consisting of graphic colors and designs. If you enlarge the image, you can see what I’m talking about. The picture of the wild paint job on a car, below, is an example (and you can see in the closeup screen capture at right how the abstract colors and shapes make up the image), as is the red eye tree frog shot on the next page.

To save the mosaic, click the Save as image tab (green arrow at right). You can find the image either on your desktop or in your downloads folder.

I mention this technique because it’s free, fun, and fast. If you want to create a serious mosaic, then you need to use method two.

The PhotoMosaic method

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Look closely at the mosaics on pages 4 and 5. They consist of scores of individual photographs, many of which are repeated depending on the underlying picture and how the software put the pieces together. In addition, they are high resolution. The more you enlarge the image and examine the component photos, the

tos 500 x 750 pixels at 300 dpi saved as jpgs. It’s faster and much easier if you set up an action in The stand alone program I use for this is Photo the actions palette to do this. If you don’t know Mosaic, and you can purchase it from this web- how to do that, see the November 2015 issue of site for $29.99: this eMagazine for an explanation (all past issues are available online by using the links on www.cfxsoftware.com the book shelves at the end of this issue). more intriguing this technique becomes.

As with many programs and plugins, the pro- The images you choose can be thematic or rangram offers you presets to make the process very dom. For example, for the red door on the next easy. But first there are two things you must do. page, since I photographed it in the United Kingdom, I made a mosaic in which all of the 1. First, you must create a blank folder and fill it images were taken in the U. K. For a masked with at least a couple dozen images that will be carnival participant in Venice, Italy on page 9, I used to comprise the image. You can include 50 created a folder with about 40 different images or 100 photos, too. Resize each one to a small from Venice. But you can mix and match, so to size. In Image > image size I make all of the pho- speak. For a portrait of a young girl, you might 7

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UPCOMING PHOTO WORKSHOPS Carnival in Venice workshop Outrageous costumes in a medieval environment! Venice is great to visit and photograph any time, but during carnival it’s magical. There is nothing like it anywhere in the world. Exotic masks, stunning colors, classic images.

Feb. 1 - 8, 2018

Frog & Reptile Workshop Close-up encounters with poison dart frogs and exotic reptiles such as chameleons, geckos, snakes, and more in St. Louis, Missouri. This is a macro workshop in which everyone consistently gets amazing pictures.

June 3 - 4, 2017

Photoshop workshop The setting is in my home, and in this two day workshop you’ll learn enough to be truly dangerous in Photoshop! How to replace a sky, how to fix all kinds of photographic problems in your pictures, how to handle blown highlights, how to be incredibly creative . . . and more.

Nov. 11 - 12, 2017 10 10

want all of the pictures to be flowers or various designs in lace. In the mosaic below of a bronze drazon statue I captured in Slovenia, I used a folder of about 100 pictures of places in Europe as well as some macro shots of flowers.

2. Once the folder is complete with your selection of images, open the program. You will see the dialog box as shown on the next page (minus the large photo of the old car which is my shot). The first thing you do is click the tab Set master as indicated by the red arrow (enlarge the pdf file of this eMagazine on your hand held device or computer and you can read the small text throughout the dialog box). The Set master tab asks you to choose a photo that will be the basis of the mosaic. It can be a psd file, a tif, or a jpg. Browse your photos and select the hi res version. Choose an image that is very graphic, not with a lot of detail. Black and white images work well, although I prefer color. It may take

you a few attempts in choosing a graphic image before you are happy with the resulting mosaic.

Once this is done, move the cropping guides (magenta arrow) to include all of your image or part of it.

Next, click the tab Add images to DB (green arrow). ‘DB’ refers to your data base, and this is the folder containing the photos you’ve prepared in the first step. Navigate to the folder -- don’t open it -- and simply click on the folder itself. Then in the lower right corner of this dialog box, click Use images. Any master image you now choose will be made up of these thumbnail photos you’ve already resized.

3. Now you must choose the resolution of the mosaic. In the lower right corner (yellow arrow), you will see a drop down menu with several choices. I always use Insane 16 x 20 which

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produces a file size somewhere between 150 to 240 megs. You choose the setting that works for you.

4. At this point, you are ready to use one of the presets along the right side of the dialog box (blue arrow). You’ll want to experiment with all of them. Once you choose one (I usually use the first, second, and fourth presets), the final step is to click on the green triange (orange arrow) and that starts the process. The higher the resolution of the final image, the longer it takes.

For a 150 megabyte final composite, the processing time on my iMac is about one minute.

5. If and when you want to do some custom tweaking to change how the mosaic looks -- for example, to vary the size of the photo tiles or to include a color border around each tile -- click on the Div or the gear tab in the upper left corner (cyan arrow). These links open other dialog boxes with more tools. When you purchase the software, it comes with an online manual that explains each option in detail. §e, 12

CAMERA SETTINGS O

n every photography tour I lead, the participants frequently ask me what camera settings they should use for any given photographic subject or scene. This is true for beginners as well as intermediate photographers and at times even advanced shooters. As far as I can determine, they ask because: (1) They are not fully secure in their knowledge of the relationship between f/stops, shutter speeds, and ISO, or

(2) They don’t want to make a mistake and they are just double checking with me, or (3) They have a hard time previsualizing what the results should be, or (4) The exposure techniques I teach differ with other instructors they’ve had and they want to understand why I think my approach is the right one, or (5) They are still unclear about how the factors

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affecting depth of field work together On my recent Patagonia photo tour I explained how to choose camera settings, and the feedback I got from the group told me that this information was very helpful. So, I’m going to share this with you here.

Decisions, Decisions Every time you take a picture, you have to decide what settings to use, or your camera makes those decisions for you. Since you are the artist, you should be the one making the decisions.

Hand-held action photography DECISION #1. First and foremost, you must choose a shutter speed. This must be decided before lens aperture and before the ISO setting.

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Why? Because -- and this is one of the most important concepts in photography -It doesn’t matter how much depth of field you have, and it doesn’t matter how noise-free your pictures are, if your images aren’t sharp then they will be failures.

Doesn’t that make sense? Therefore, no matter what subject you are shooting, if you are handholding the camera and want sharp pictures, you must establish the shutter speed first.

Tripod photography with moving subjects Even if you want blurred pictures, such as traffic lights at night or the soft look of falling water, as in the 30 second exposure of a waterfall in Iceland, below, you still must choose the shutter speed before anything else because that determines how abstracted the movement is.

Whether you are using a tripod or hand holding the camera and you want a fast shutter to freeze a bird in flight like the black collared hawk in the Pantanal, above, and the light level is relative low, there are only two ways to do that: (1) Open the lens aperture (which sacrifices depth of field) and/or (2) raise the ISO (which disregards the increase in noise). Remember, you’ve determined that the shutter speed is paramount and that means the other considerations are secondary.

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Which exposure mode should you use in this situation? There are three choices: a. Shutter priority. You choose the shutter speed, say 1/3200th of a second in the case of the hawk, and the camera chooses the aperture. If the aperture blinks in the viewfinder, that means there isn’t enough light. You have to either open the aperture more, if possible, or raise the ISO until the blinking stops. b. Aperture priority. You must open the lens aperture until the camera chooses the shutter speed you want. If you open the lens all the way and the shutter still isn’t fast enough, you must raise the ISO, accepting more noise in the picture.

C. Manual exposure mode. This is the method I use most. In this scenario, you set the shutter manually, you set the aperture manually,

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and the ISO is set to auto. When you do this, the auto ISO uses the camera’s metering system to select whatever ISO setting is necessary for a correct exposure.

For the ringed kingfisher diving for a fish in the Pantanal region of Brazil on page 14, I used method C. I selected the shutter speed of 1/5000 to freeze not only the water drops but the tips of the wings as well. I then chose f/8 as my aperture to give me a certain amount of depth of field. The auto ISO in this particular light condition dictated 4000.

Hand-held photography for landscapes and cityscapes Situation 1. When the elements in your composition are far enough away to be considered at ‘optical infinity’ such as the Patagonian landscape on page 13, the Salzburg, Austria picture

Expand your photographic artistry with

eBooks

Click on any ebook to see inside

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eBooks continued Click on any ebook to see inside

Fantasy Nudes is in production and is coming soon 18

on page 14, and the shot of Bryce Canyon on page 16, depth of field is no longer a factor. It is irrelevant because all three of these scenes will be sharp at any lens aperture. If you used f/2.8 or f/16, the results will be the same. This is true only when the elements in the scene are far away.

As soon as you compose a picture with a foreground and background like the image below, depth of field becomes very relevant and you want a small lens aperture. However, if you are hand-holding the camera, the shutter speed is still the first decision. If the amount of light is sufficient and/or you are willing to raise the ISO, you can have your cake and eat it, too. In other words, you can have a fast shutter plus a small lens aperture.

For example, with a wide angle lens (like a 1635mm), you could choose 1/60 or 1/125 and

f/16, but with an overcast sky that might force the ISO to be, say, 1600.

Photography with a tripod with non-moving subjects I am always asked on my photo tours whether or not a tripod is needed when we go out to shoot. This is not a simple answer because it depends on: a. How much light there is b. How lazy you are feeling at the moment c. How unburdened you want to feel when you shoot d. How much depth of field you want e. How low you want the ISO to be f. How important maximum picture quality is to you.

For example, if the light is low as in the shot

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of Dubrovnik, Croatia, above, and you are not feeling lazy, you don’t mind being burdened by a tripod, and you want extensive depth of field and a low ISO for maximum picture quality, definitely go through the hassle of using a tripod.

On the other hand, if you are feeling lazy, you don’t want to deal with the extra weight of a tripod, and you don’t mind using a high ISO and/or having an out of focus foreground, then don’t bring the tripod.

It’s that simple.

When you use a tripod, the camera setting priorities change.

First, determine the f/stop for (usually) maximum depth of field. This will be f/22 or f/32 depending on the lens. Use aperture priority.

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LEARNING TO SEE online course

by Jim Zuckerman

The ability to ‘see photographically’, to really grasp how your camera and lenses capture a subject or scene (which is different than how we see with our eyes) underlies successful picture taking. It is the bottom line that you’ve been looking for to take that quantum leap forward in your photography.

The great thing about online courses is that they can fit into any schedule. Life gets in the way at times, and Jim puts no limit on the time you can submit your work for his critiques. CLICK THIS PAGE to read more about this course.

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Second, choose a low ISO for minimum noise and maximum picture quality.

Third, let the shutter speed adjust according to the light even if it is very slow. Being on a tripod with nothing moving in the frame, the shutter speed is no longer relevant.

Hand-held photography of people Most of the time when you photograph people, whether it’s street photography, travel portraits, grandchildren, or at a celebration, a tripod is just not feasible. It’s inhibiting, your subjects lose patience with you setting it up, it’s an annoyance, and it takes the spontaneity out of shooting. Therefore, let’s look at the camera settings with this in mind.

First decision: Shutter speed. The pictures have to be sharp.

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Second decision: lens aperture. Is depth of field imporant, and if so, should the background be in focus, out of focus, or doesn’t it matter?

Third decision: ISO. If the sharpness of the background is irrelevant, use Program mode. Keep your eye on the shutter, though, to make sure it is fast enough. If not, raise the ISO. Program mode is designed to give you the fastest shutter speed possible given the light and the ISO, minus 1/3 f/stop. That means that if the light dictates 1/125 at f/4, Program will give you settings of 1/100 at f/4.5. This is what I mean by “the fastest shutter minus 1/3 f/stop.” As the amount of light increases, the shutter gets faster and faster up to a point. When the shutter gets to be 1/250th and faster, you start to get more depth of field. That’s how the algorithm works.

Program mode frees you to concentrate on composition, expression, light and shadow, and the background. The electronics takes over.

They assume you are hand holding the camera and you need a fast shutter.

If you must have depth of field, as in the photo of the Himba girl in Namibia, above, then use aperture priority. For this picture, I set the lens aperture to f/16 and let the shutter vary -- but keeping a watchful eye on it to make sure it was fast enough for a sharp picture. In this case, it ended up being 1/800 with 400 ISO in the bright sun light.

In a shot like the Nepalese portrait at right in which I used a 24mm wide angle lens, depth of field wasn’t an issue because there wasn’t much depth in the image and the wide lens inherently has a lot of DOF. Therefore, I could use either Program mode or Aperture priority. § 23

PHOTO TOUR to EGYPT October 5 - 14, 2017 Awesome ruins

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Great history

Ancient art

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Wide Angle Lenses:

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The CONUNDRUM

ide angle lenses are creative tools.

In addition to the width of their angle, they exaggerate perspective artfully, make foregrounds disproportionately large compared to the background, and have phenomenal depth of field.

But wide angles have one problem. When you include both a foreground and a background, they push the background farther away and make it appear smaller and less significant.

Sometimes that isn’t a problem, but many times it is. For example, the church in Iceland, below left, has a unique look because I photographed it with a 16-35mm lens. The wide angle distortion is readily apparent, but what is

not apparent -- unless you have been to this place -- is that this is not a true representation of the scene. The snow-covered mountains don’t look as dominant and large as they do when standing there looking at the landscape with your eyes. The lens made those beautiful mountains diminutive.

The solution is to take two separate pictures and then put then together. For the lower right image, I combined the 16mm shot of the church with a medium telephoto picture of the mountains. In this way, background looks in the picture like it did to my eyes, and yet the church is angled and distorted based on the characteristics of the wide angle lens. §

This is an example of where Photoshop simulates what our eyes see because a lens can’t capture reality.

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What’s wrong with this picture?

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captured this bearded dragon in southern Arizona. It is native to the Sonora Desert near Tucson, and as part of a workshop I’m conducting there next year (for bats, hummingbirds, and owls) there is a day set aside for photographing native desert reptiles as well. What I like about this picture is the low angled perspective, something we rarely see with animals so close to the ground, and the clean, complemenary background. The problem, though, is the out of focus rocky foreground. It is unattractive and distracting.

Why is the rock so blurred? Because I used a 70-200mm telephoto about five feet from the dragon and the rock was only three feet from the lens. The close proximity plus the shallow depth of field characteristic of telephotos gave me shallow depth of field. Even the f/11 lens aperture couldn’t compensate for the other factors that influence DOF. Had I closed the lens down to f/22, the

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foreground would still be unacceptably soft.

The only solution was to take a separate shot of the rock, or another similar rock in the same light, and make it sharp. In post-processing, I could then cut and paste the sharp rock over the out of focus foreground. This is like adding depth of field after-the-fact. It is really re-creating the scene to simulate what I could see with my eyes, not what the lens with its optical limitations could reveal.

In photographing the rock, I purposely introduced a hint of shallow depth of field to make this look more ‘realistic’, or at least more like what photographers are used to seeing when telephoto lenses are used. You can see in the lower left corner there is a little bit of softness. §

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SHORT AND SWEET 1.

Use windows and doors to frame subjects. It’s a very effective and graphic way to photograph a person or any other type of subject. In this shot of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, I posed a dancer in the low-slung doorway of the ancient ruins.

3. When photographing hummingbirds with a multi-

flash setup, you usually get more than one catchlight in the eye. Since there is only one light source in nature -- the sun -- it’s best to clone out all of the catchlights except one. That looks a lot more natural and less like a setup.

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2.

I turned this image into a painting using Topaz Impression. I shot this at mid-day when the sunlight was harsh, but in this instance the excessive contrast and resulting shadows add to the graphic nature of the picture. In art, there are no rules, just guidelines.

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Spring, summer, and autumn are the times of year when there are many car shows across the U.S. and in Europe. Go online and search for ‘Concourse d’elegance’ to find the best of the best shows with the most expensive and most beautiful cars. Use Photoshop to eliminate unwanted backgrounds like I did here. §

ASK JIM

Every month Jim will answer a question from his online students, from people who participate in his tours and workshops, or from subscribers to this magazine. If you have a question you’d like Jim to answer, please drop him a note at photos@jimzuckerman.com.

Q: Jim . . I saw this image of great horned owlets on one of your Facebook posts, and given the fact that

you used on-camera flash, how did you deal with ‘red eye’? I would have thought it would be quite a problem with this image.

Mark Grubaugh, Elsie, Michigan

A: Great question, Mark. Most animals and birds don’t reflect red in their eyes like people do. Sometimes

it’s green, sometimes white, and sometimes blue. If you look at this picture closely, you can see that all of the eyes are bluish. Actually, pupils are black. The blue color is the ‘red eye’ for great horned owlets. §

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Photography Tours 2017 - 2018 CHINA WILDLIFE Sept. 2017

EGYPT Oct. 2017

TUSCANY/CINQUE TERRA Oct. 2017

SNOWY OWLS Jan. 2018

CARNIVAL IN VENICE Feb. 2018

NEW ZEALAND Apr. 2018

WHITE HORSES, FRANCE May 2018

CROATIA, SLOVENIA, etc.

May 2018

LAVENDER Jula. 2018

GRIZZLIES in CANADA Sep. 2018

THE PANTANAL Nov. 2018

KAZAKHSTAN Aug. 2017

For a complete list of all the photo tours/workshops Jim conducts, go to his website: www.jimzuckerman.com.

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South Africa & Namibia photo safari April 25 - May 9, 2018

Awesome wildlife exotic birds monster dunes

Lioness and cubs, Sabi Sabi, South Africa

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Travel Photographer’s SURVIVAL GUIDE

raveling and taking pictures of wonderful places is an exciting endeavor.

I have loved it for a long time. There are many pitfalls, though, and it’s important that you travel intelligently. In addition, there are more and more restrictions imposed by the airlines, by governments, and by governmental agencies that oversee many of the places we want to photgraph.

perience, I’ve put together a list of things you should think about before you take your next trip either with a photo tour company or as an independent traveler.

1. Wear a photo vest when you check in. This is essential because many airlines restrict the weight of your carryon. For photographers, this is a terrible problem because our gear is heavy.

When you add a laptop, iPad, etc., the 7 or 8 kiIt’s important to have a strategy in place so you los (16 to 18 pounds) allowed for a camera bag can deal with the challenges that all travelers isn’t enough. Some airlines may be lenient with face. Photographers, especially, have many you (depending on the person who is checking problems to deal with. From many years of ex- you in), but other times they absolutely will not

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allow you to take your gear onboard. I’ve encountered this with Emirates, Lufthansa, and Aerolineas Argentinas among others. The solution is to fill the pockets of your photo vest before you check in. They never weigh a jacket or coat, and they don’t weigh a photo vest, either. In this way, you can make your carryon conform to their weight restrictions. After you get your boarding pass, repack your gear and go through security. The security people don’t care about the weight of your stuff. They are looking for other things.

2. Bring noise cancelling headphones on long flights. The only way I survive long flights is by drowning out the constant drone of the airplane engines and substituting my own music or movies. I don’t rely on the movie selections from the airlines. Sometimes they will have a good movie or two, but many times they don’t . . . or I’ve seen all the good ones in their menu.

With my iPad loaded with several films as well as my music library, time goes by much faster and much more enjoyably than it would otherwise. And the noise cancelling feature of the headphones puts me in my own world. Except for the occasional turbulence and the cramped quarters, I can almost forget where I am.

3. Research electrical adapters and bring the correct one(s). Sometimes a country or region has more than one type of plug. Europe is like this, and so many other places are as well.

Find out what kinds of plugs are used and carry adapters that give you all the options. If you stay in a hotel with one kind of plug and you happen to have an adapter for the other kind, you won’t be able to charge all of your electronics. And if you find yourself in a remote location with no stores and a reception desk that doesn’t have any adapters to loan you, you’ve got a big problem.

Road construction workers, India

4. Bring enough flash cards. Depending on how you shoot, bring enough flash cards so you don’t have to reformat them to use again. Keep them as one of your backups (the other backup can be a laptop or portable hard drive). I suggest at least 150 gigs, but if you are going on safari or are photographing birds, I recommend 200 gigs.

5. Give yourself enough time to change planes.

A minimum of two hours should be alotted when you have to arrive in an airport to transit to another flight. I prefer a minimum of three hours. Flights are delayed, airline crews can have issues, weather is often a problem -- take the stress out of travel by allowing enough time for any unforeseen problems. Even if the airlines tell you that you have a “legal transit time”, don’t fall for that nonsense. If you experience tremendous stress, miss your flight, and are terribly inconvenienced, they couldn’t care less.

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6. Overnight midway in a long trip. When you are flying many hours to a destination like Africa, Asia, or the southern tip of South America, consider getting a good night’s sleep where you connect with the next flight segment of your journey. Take a room in an airport hotel and then continue on your way the next morning. This will go a long way to making you feel rested upon arrival.

7. Apply for Global Entry and pre-TSA. Long lines at U.S. immigration and at security check points increase your stress level because of the hassle and because of the time they take to go through the gaunlet of inspections. When your time is short, having a Global Entry or pre-TSA pass that puts you ahead of other travelers can be a life saver.

8. Check to determine if you need a visa to 34

enter another country. If you forget to do this, you won’t be able to go. Some countries allow you to buy the visa upon arrival at the airport, while others don’t. Make sure this is taken care of.

9. Pack very light. Do not burden yourself with large and heavy luggage. You carry enough weight and enough volume with camera gear. Reduce the amount of clothing you take, pack no more than two pairs of shoes, and don’t bring anything that’s not essential. If you typically pack your tripod in luggage and it will only fit diagonally in a really large piece of luggage, get another tripod that folds down to a shorter length.

10. Pack food staples that will carry you through a few meals. Tuna fish in packets, granola bars, dried fruit, and nuts can replace a

meal or two if you arrive at your destination when everything is closed or when you’re hungry but too tired to go out and spend an hour or more eating. It’s also a good way to save some money.

11. Don’t show anger or frustration. When you are faced with a frustrating situation, inefficiency, or even negligence on the part of the hotel staff, airline employees, local guides, etc., anger is the last thing you want to express in almost every situation. This is especially true in foreign countries where an exhibition of emotion is considered extremely impolite.

Work toward finding a reasonable solution in a friendly, polite way. Traveling can be very stressful and things often don’t go according to your expectations. Expect that. This is part of travel -- and part of life. Deal with it in a mature and outwardly polite manner and you will find that you are more likely to get what you

Timkat Festival, Lalabela, Ethiopia

want in the end.

12. Dealing with crowds. Being in a dense crowd is no fun for most people, and photographing in this kind of situation is fraught with danger, frustration, and confusion. The best way to take pictures is from an elevated vantage, such as from the hill I climbed during the Timkat Festival in Ethiopia, below. Sometimes I’ll use a building. I will ask, bribe, or plead my way up to a second or third story window. If that’s not an option, standing on a car or truck can work. If that’s not possible, you have to be agressive and push your way through the crowd to a good photo location, all the while being totally conscious of protecting your gear. Don’t even think about bringing a tripod. It will be a serious hindrance. Everything is constantly in motion, so you have to think fast and shoot a lot to get one or two good images. §

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CHINA WILDLIFE PHOTO TOUR September 4 - 17, 2017

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Student Showcase Each month, Jim features one student who took beautiful and inspiring images on one or more of his photography tours or workshops. It’s really fascinating how photographers see and compose such different images even though we may go to the same places. Everyone gets great photographs on Jim’s trips.

Randy and Lynn Christopher, Hayward, California Wildlife babies workshop, Carnival in Venice

© 2017 Randy Christopher

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Student Showcase, continued

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© 2017 Randy Christopher

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Student Showcase, continued

Š 2017 Randy and Lynn Christopher

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Student Showcase, continued

Š 2017 Lynn Christopher

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PHOTOSHOP WORKSHOP in my home

Sat. & Sun., November 11 - 12, 2017

Using the gradient tool with a layer mask to blend the mannequin head into the paint abstract

Photoshop is a photographer’s best friend, and the creative possibilities are absolutely endless -- like replacing the background behind this 1947 Delahaye 135M. In a personal and ‘homey’ environment (I have a very cool classroom setup in my home), I start at the beginning -- assuming you know nothing -- but I quickly get into layers, cutting and pasting, plug-ins, using ‘grunge’ textures, modifying lighting, replacing backgrounds, using layer masks, blend modes, adding a moon, and a lot more. I promise to fill your head with so many great techniques that you won’t believe what you’ll be able to do. I go over each technique several times to make sure you understand it and can remember it.

Photoshop instructors approach teaching this program from different points of view. My approach is to be as expansive in my thinking as possible in creating unique, artistic, and compelling images. In addition to showing you how to use the various tools,

pull down menus, layers, and so on, I spend a lot of time giving you creative ideas that will inspire you to produce amazing images with the pictures you’ve already taken.

I live in the Nashville, Tennessee area, and if you fly into the airport (BNA) I will pick you up. If you drive, I’ll give you my address and you can find my home on Mapquest or with a GPS. For the $450 fee, I include one dinner in my home (prepared by my wife who is an amazing cook and hostess) and two lunches, plus shuttling you back and forth from my home to your nearby hotel.

Contact me if you would like to participate in the workshop and I will tell you how to sign up (photos@jimzuckerman.com). All you need is a laptop and a lot of your pictures. If you don’t have a laptop, I have two Mac Book Pro laptops I can loan out for the duration of the workshop. §

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Rotorua, a geothermal region of New Zealand photographed in 1981 with a Mamiya RB 67 medium format film camera on Ektachrome 64.

PHOTO INSIGHTS® published by Jim Zuckerman, all rights reserved © Jim Zuckerman 2017 email: photos@jimzuckerman.com mail address: P.O. Box 7, Arrington, TN 37014

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