This one caught us by surprise and no this is not about photography but rather something we experienced while doing photography. We needed some pix of the Drakensberg Boys’ Choir in the Champagne Valley for a book that we are photographing. We set up everything with the school and headed up there yesterday afternoon. Because we were doing pix we were allowed in during the “warm up” before the concert and were really impressed with the staff and boys and their preparations for the event. And then the visitors arrived – masses of them which we didn’t think was too bad for a Wednesday afternoon. We had intended to just do a few pix and then head home to try to meet deadlines etc. but we sat through the whole delightful performance. The music varied from classical to pop to African with much dancing and stomping of feet.
So, head up there and enjoy yourself. Lots of great restaurants, art galleries and music. And here’s the great bit of news: The Music in the Mountains festival starts on 23rd April (yes, that’s tomorrow) and goes on until the 26th. Well worth it methinks! More information here: http://www.dbchoir.info/
Just a short one this week. We were down in Durban wrapping up the photography for a book on KwaZulu Natal and one of the things we had to get was some pix of Hindu Temple Dancers. But how? I thrashed around with some ideas and was getting nowhere very quickly when the thought occurred to me that I should be talking to my friend Raymond Pillay who heads up Assegai and Javelin – an amazing advertising agency in Durban. A quick call and a few minutes later all was set up. Local knowledge at it best!
Well almost. Local, local knowledge is even better. We started doing the shoot at the Palmview Temple, a typical, but rather plain Hindu Temple . Our young (experienced, it turns out) models were beautiful, dressed in their saris and jewellery we did a few pix and then of the mothers suggested that we move location to a temple near where she lived – aparently it was more attractive. We (6 of us) piled into Pat’s little Peugeot 206 (not really a “people carrier” of note) and wound our way through the back streets of Phoenix until we came to the most beautiful of temples and got some really great images of the temple as well as the temple dancers. Local knowledge really does work!
If you need images of temple dancers and other subjects have a look at our Image Bank.
Why not join us on our safari to Madikwe Game Reserve in May where we will be trying to get some great images of wild dogs. More info here: http://www.africaimagery.com/workshops_madikwe.php
I’ve said it before, but it is worth repeating: If you don’t have a camera with you, you are not going to get many photographs!
I carry a little point and shoot camera around with me all the time and today it paid off. Pat and I were in the centre of Pietermaritzburg and we noticed a slight commotion opposite the city hall. We wandered over to have a look and who should get out of a car but Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Wow! It kind of made our day.
It seems that he is taking part in a documentary about some of the more interesting destinations in South Africa and he was in Pietermaritzburg to visit the Mahadma Gandhi statue close to the city hall. He was met by Mayor, Mike Tarr and Deputy Mayor Jabu Ngube. What a treat! And of course out came the camera and we got some very useful images. The quality of images from these little point and shoot cameras can be really awesome and it does pay to keep one with you.
While we were in the Eastern Cape recently we stopped off in Port Elizabeth to see if we could get some images of the Nelson Mandela Bay Soccer Stadium there. I had done some initial research using Google Earth and then quite a bit of pre-visualisation on the long drive down through the Free State and the Eastern Cape. As so often happens when you have done all the planning, is that the situation on the ground bears little resemblance to that you had in your head. Firstly, there was quite a bit of construction work happening, particularly with the road infrastructure around the stadium, and then the lovely view of the stadium across the lake was nothing like the image in my head! We a bit of a recce but found nothing that came even close to the sort of thing that I had imagined. I did some images (the first couple in the gallery below) and as it was a little early in the day we headed off to find some lunch and see what was happening elsewhere. (Here’s a little tip on the side: When we are in a situation like this I log my position into my GPS (we’ve got a Garmin Nuvi 500) so that, after driving around a strange city, we can easily and quickly navigate our way back to the place we need to be).
We returned later when the light had improved and did a couple of more pix which also left me cold – the light was a little better but that was about it! Then I noticed in the distance, along the edge of the lake just below the stadium, some canoeists training. Wow! I grabbed some pix. But where were they coming from? Certainly not from anywhere near us.
We headed off in the car – they seemed to be from just to the south-west of the stadium in amongst some factories. The language in the car got steadily worse as we battled rush hour traffic and construction workers. Eventually we found the spot – the local canoe club – and spend an hour or so getting images more like the ones I had pre-visualised in the car. And the lesson/s: Well, pre-visualisation really does help in that I new that there was something more that I wanted. And of course the big thing is keep and open mind and don’t give up. Keep shooting until you really do have the pix you wanted.
Remember, if you wuld like to join us one one of our Photographic Safaris we have a number happening this year and our Image Library is growing by the day. We have been speaking to a number of photographers and we’ve got some very exciting portfolios comming on board soon. Whatch this space.
I am a member of the Pix Magazine photography forum (have a look here: http://pixmag.ning.com) and from time to time members ask advice. Here’s a recent one and I’ve posted it here because I think that it could be useful to you. Here’s the question: “Hi. I hope you are well. Roger can you please help me. I obviously must be doing something wrong on the aperture priority. I have noticed that when I try to blur the backgrounds of some of the photos it doesn’t always work. I adjust the aperture to minimum (3-5) the minimum that the camera allow”.
The depth of field is hugely influenced by your choice of lens (also by the aperture of course) and indirectly by your choice of camera. The reason I say by the camera is that if you are
This image was shot with Nikon's 200-400mm f4 lens at 400mm and at f4 resulting in a nice smooth background.
using a small sensor camera like the Nikon D300 or a Canon 7D then your “standard lens” (50mm on a full frame camera and somewhere around 35mm for the so called DX format cameras) is longer on my full frame D3x, for example, than on my wife’s D300. What this means is that in any given situation, you will be using a longer focal length lens with a full frame sensor than with a DX camera to achieve the same framing. And wide angle lenses, as we know, show more depth of field than telephoto lenses.
If you want out of focus backgrounds use the longest lens you can with the largest aperture you can and in your case it seems to f4.5. This aperture will limit things a little especially if the lens that you are using is fairly short. All those wonderful animal portraits with completely blown out backgrounds that you see are usually shot with lenses like the 300mm f2.8, 400mm f2.8 and the 600mm f4 – expensive glass to be sure.
There are 2 other things to consider:
The first is that the closer you are to your subject the shallower the depth of field – just try shooting macro. Number 2 is that the further the background is from your subject the more out of focus it will be. So the recipe for out of focus backgrounds is to use a long lens with a very large aperture (f2.8 or f4), get close to your subject (obviously within the limits of the lens that you are using) and make sure that the background is as far away as possible.
Hope this helps
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