Actually the 2 needn't be in conflict. Your portrait should give the viewer a sense of the real you while still showing that you take pride in your appearance. If I shoot your portrait, we'll first ask "Why?". Is this a presentation of you for general use or should it be shot with a particular situation in mind. To exaggerate what I mean; Are you applying for a job as a rodeo clown or a mortician? Recently I made some portraits for Mike Klein, the General Manager of the Eliza Jane Hotel, a beautiful smaller hotel a few blocks from the French Quarter. Having looked at the shots of other G.M.s in the group I started with something similar to the others. Mike is a pleasant, relaxed guy, I wanted to show that so I asked him to have a seat. We got a shot in which, I think, he looks more like the relaxed, friendly person I met and chatted with before I started shooting. We liked the more relaxed look so I asked Mike to lean against the bar at the Eliza Jane. To my way of thinking, after talking to Mike about things like kids and the hotel business, the last 2 shots give you a view of him that reflects his personality while still looking just formal and posed enough for the intended use.

You see, I cleverly made the "RAW" all caps because that's how we typically refer to the digital photographic negative known as a RAW file. To illustrate the main reason I shoot RAW files on every job is developability. Never mind where I found that word. The RAW file captures so much data that the photographer can very often bring a useable photo to life from what looks at first glance like a loser. These are called RAW because they are uncompressed. The JPEG files you see in your LED and may be offloading from your camera are compressed and developed in the camera, as some of us like to say, according to what somebody you don't know in Tokyo thinks looks good. That means some lost data and less variability in developing on your computer. Here's an example of a RAW file in action. Recently I saw an unusual occupant of my back yard bed and grabbed my trusty Canon EOS 5Ds. I just turned the camera on and pressed the focus button (see previous post) and took this shot. I hear you saying, "Cheese & Rice, Dan. How's anybody seeing that on "Next Door" going to tell what kind of bird that is? Well, take a look at this. The RAW file always gives us the hope that a hastily made photograph will hold much more useable light data than initially meets the eye. This one took some cropping and developing in Adobe Lightroom but came out good enough for someone to identify this bird as a woodcock, the first I've seen in my yard. Chances are your camera gives you the option of shooting RAW files. Search that menu. Each brand offers a version of RAW, like Nikon's NEF, and Adobe offers to convert your RAW files to something called DNG so that, when other RAW formats change over time, Adobe software will always recognize the DNG format. I keep my files in Canon's CRW format because history tells me that, the manufacturer changing the format will give us all the opportunity to convert our old files to the new format. Full disclosure: my bodies have 2 card slots and I shoot JPEGs in one so I can quickly send some shots to my clients while on the job.

If you want to make photographs that are eye catching you should look for various angles and elevations from which to shoot. This might mean something as simple as squatting a little for an upward looking shot or standing on a chair for the opposite. Look around for a place that will change your shooting angle without putting you in danger. I always look for a riser, stage, stairway, balcony, anywhere I can place myself for a few shots that will give my client additional choices. This shot is from Generations Hall during the wine raffle I shot for the MPI Gulf States Chapter. The space wasn’t open as part of the evening but, well, it wasn’t exactly restricted except for that closed gate that happened to bump open when I got close to it. The client may not be impressed by the unusual angles, but I include them just in case they hit the spot. If you want to impress with your photographs, consider setting up a shot and then thinking how a different angle might improve it.

I'm borrowing advice from Pete Sousa, famous White House photographer under Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama.(He won't mind.) His job and mine were similar in 2 ways. He was required to follow people and be ready to shoot at any moment and he used the same selection of equipment as I, probably because it suites the job so well. He advises photographers to turn our heads right and left and don't be surprised if a good shot is revealed. That's something I try to remember wherever and whenever I'm shooting, for any reason. For this shot I was back stage as people were waiting for their turns to go on stage during a convention. I was taking a break, resting my feet before resuming my travels through the grand ballroom. In my opinion this view of the woman waiting in the wings invites the viewer to imagine her emotions. For our purposes it's just an example of a shot I made because I looked around, camera ready, and grabbed the shot a moment before the lady walked on stage and began passionately telling the assembled acolytes how lucky they were to be employed by such a benevolent company. I developed the shot in "black & white" because I think it looks more dramatic. Let your mind and your eyes wander and grab a bunch of images while doing so. You'll probably delete most of them but you may find a sparkling gem among them.

I still get asked if I’ve “switched to digital”. I made that switch over 20 years ago. In 2024 the digital camera is even more ubiquitous than the film camera was in the 20th century. I don’t say that just because everybody has a camera built into a phone. The ease of shooting with a light digital camera, loading those images into your computer and developing and/or distributing them has made the big difference. It’s easy to specify the improvements in the photographic experience: 1. You see your photos immediately. 2. You can show them to other people immediately. 3. If so inclined, you can develop them yourself at your desk with no need for chemicals or a separate room. This is why Adobe named its developing software Lightroom. Get it? 4. You can do way more with an image to change its appearance and you can easily go back and start over. 5. You shoot a roll of film once. If you save the negatives you need storage space for them. You can use a digital card pretty much indefinitely and the storage space is on a hard drive. So, over time, digital is cheaper. Today’s technology means I can shoot an event for a client and send some pictures to my client in 10-15 minutes, depending on the number of shots and extent of developing. If you follow events on the internet, you'll see the same turnaround time for images from around the world. I understand that some people are still shooting film or returning to film for the fun of working with it. For the average person more interested in documenting a moment, or those, like me, who want to quickly provide the best images to a client, there’s no contest.

If you want to shoot scenes and people that are constantly moving and changing, it’s helpful to focus and capture your shots using separate buttons on your camera. The common way of doing this is called “back button focusing”. Your camera is probably delivered with the focusing and metering done as you “half press’ the shutter button. Search your camera’s menus for the “custom controls” selection or something similar. On my Canon cameras the “AF ON” button on the back initiates the auto focus function. The customizing I did was to change the function of the shutter button from both metering and focusing to just metering. If your camera won’t let you do that, get a different camera. When I shoot, I initiate focusing on a point in the scene that should give me good focus on the subjects I’m shooting. I keep that focusing indicator in the middle of my viewfinder screen because using the AF ON button means I can point the camera at the focal point I want, focus, and then frame the shot and shoot using the shutter button. If your shutter button is doing both functions, you’ll refocus the shot as you press the shutter button and you may find the focal point has shifted to something beyond your subject or in front of it. I find that using the back button technique is easier than maintaining that half-press on the shutter button while framing the shot. If you’re new to back button focusing it will take some practice but, once you do it by habit, it will make your results much more satisfactory.

Objective, Reactive, Subjective photography is the way I usually satisfy my clients, and it’s a way to approach photography when you wander into the world outside your domain in search of a great shot. “Objective” means both the objective of my photography at the moment and the need to look at something objectively as either a shot you want or need, or a scene with little or no potential. This shot shows Amanda Shaw, one of Louisiana's finest musicians, getting energetic while playing rather than singing (both of which she does quite well). My objective was to get shots of Amanda on Stage and I objectively looked for moments which I thought would make appealing photos. I have no problem rejecting a bunch of shots during developing but I want to minimize the time I'll waste going through them “Reactive” means seeing the shot and reacting quickly to get it. To do that effectively you have your camera set to exposure parameters that will capture the shot with enough detail and, most importantly, focused properly, so that you can refine the look of the photo in developing. I’ve yet to work a job in which one basic exposure setting will get what I need out of every situation. The lighting will be different in each room of the hotel convention area. The lighting will be vastly different if the event moves outdoors, etc., so I shoot RAW files and exploit the ability of my software to get detail from highlights and shadows. “Subjective” means that I look for something in the scene that adds drama or excitement or interest, something that might make the image unusually appealing, more than simply documentation of the moment. In this case Amanda's position relative to the other musicians, her body posture at the moment, and, in developing, making her stand out in the shot, hoping to give it some "pop" and drama. I usually shot 3 shot bursts hoping that 1 of the 3 will be great. O.R.S. photography is my way of keeping my steps simple while being ready to react in situations over which I have no control and the details of which are difficult to predict. You can only prepare so much for active situations, like concerts and conventions, so the O.R.S. method lets me keep up with the action and avoid too many shots that will never be used.

According to an opinion I recently read, "Colorization doesn't not bring us closer to the past. It Increases the gap between now and then. It does not enable immediacy. It creates difference." Oh, really? Take a look at this image of my great-great grandparents. I have it on good authority that they didn't look like that. They were not shades of gray It's my considered opinion that my great-great grandparents, like every other person I've ever seen or met, were colorful. They may not have looked exactly like this but they certainly looked more like the second photo than the first. Colorization brings us closer to the reality of the past. I have no time for the practice of adding content to old images or films. That's nothing but the editor's imagination. I am certain, however, that, if the photographers of earlier times had access to the equipment with which to make images in color, the majority of them would've done so without hesitation. P.S. I also digitally cleaned up this photo before adding colors. I can do this kind of colorizing for you but it takes a long time and I charge a lot.

Above you see the advertised specs for the CF cards I use in my Canon EOS 5Ds cameras. That has absolutely no effect on how fast I can see the images I’m recording as I run around a hotel trying to capture some shots of every session going on at one time. “Why?”, you ask. Because the write speed of my cameras is right around 100 MB/s, depending on the detail included in the image. It will run between 99 and 101 MB/s. So that’s as fast as the images can be transferred from card to camera regardless of the potential write speed of the card. The last time I looked, the specs for cameras available through retail outlets didn’t include the write speed of the camera. I'd guess that the folks writing those specs don't expect you to be looking for that particular number. The speed of your card may very well improve the speed of downloading from your card to your computer or, as in my case, separate hard drive. That will depend on the card reader, the connections used, and your computer. I haven't looked into every camera from every manufacturer but, from my initial searching it seems that your average "high end" camera will transfer images to the card at around 100 MB/s regardless of the card.

I just watched yet another tutorial (yes, I do) that suggested I make my base image a “smart image” before using the described technique so it my work will be “non destructive”. Here’s a fact I’ve know for a long time, since I started using Photoshop in 2009. All your work is non destructive UNLESS you save your work in the same place as the same kind of file with the same name. For example: When I finished work on this image of the Lucky Dog man in Jackson Square I saved it in the same folder but with a different name than the one with which it came from the camera AND it was saved as a Photoshop Document. That creates the suffix “.psd so it will not overwrite the original RAW file. Remember that the RAW file will show the developing changes I made in Adobe Lightroom but those can be undone by returning the sliders in Lightroom’s Develop module to their neutral positions. My point? Don’t worry about destroying your original unless you’re working with some kind of “auto save” feature that continues to save your work in exactly the same file, with exactly the same name. You probably already know that you can create a brand new file by just changing or adding or subtracting one character from the file name. So if I’m working on a file named 210110130045.CR2 and I want to be absolutely positively sure that RAW file will remain unchanged in its folder, I’ll resave it as 21011013046.CR2 and work on that file just to be safe.

The person whose legs and hand are visible in this photo from the French Quarter is in public view and has made no effort conceal herself (assuming it’s a woman) from public view. Stated differently, she has no reasonable expectation of privacy. I state this because too many people have put forth the idea that a person in a public space, clearly visible to anyone nearby, has a right to privacy from photography. A street musician, of which we have way too many in New Orleans, has the right to refuse to play for a photographer unless compensated. A person who has erected some type of shelter in a public space and concealed himself or herself within it has a right to expect photographers to leave them undisturbed. I’ll state it another way: The space you’re in is either public or private but it can’t be both and if you’re in a public space when I’m around with my camera you can look away, run away, flip me off, make an ugly face, and call me mean names but you can’t demand privacy that doesn’t exist.

I have mixed feelings about the elevation of pointing the camera at scenes you find interesting, for whatever reason, to the artistic category of “street photography”. It’s true that making interesting photographs of people and things normally found outdoors requires a certain eye for the scene. Each of us in photography thinks we have such an eye. The reason I hesitate to elevate street photography to an art form is that the photographer simply must recognize the scene and capture it before it changes. That’s exactly what I did to capture the scene shown here. This did require that I saw what was happening and anticipated the shot. I guess it's artistic in a way. It’s mainly an example of timing. In my profession, as a convention and event photographer, I must keep watch for a good scene and be ready to grab it with my camera. Often the scene is planned by the meeting planner and I just have to be at the proper place on time. I try to be creative in the way I capture the moment but “art”? I’m not feeing it.