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Addiction to Photography

This post is dedicated to my father-in-law, James Lombardo.

Hello, my name is Jason Schlosberg.  And I have an addiction to photography.

 (Jason Schlosberg)

Photography is like crack cocaine.

Yes, I feel incomplete without a camera nearby.  I get the jitters if I am unable to capture a beautiful scene because I left my trusty Canon at home.  While vacations are primarily to enjoy family time, my wife, Donna, notices that I’m on edge if I’m asked to leave my camera in the hotel room.  She believes sunsets should be reserved for romantic coupling.  I can’t say I blame her, but sometimes addictions make one think irrationally.

Great photographic opportunities are fleeting.  In landscape photography, the lighting and other conditions change within moments, never to be captured again.  The greatest outdoor photographers spend hours, if not days, in the same location, waiting for the perfect composition of sky and light.  Patience is a key ingredient to capture an image sufficiently powerful to take the edge off of the addiction.

The addiction is felt more clearly with the added variables of urban and life scenes.  Cars pass by, people move, incidents occur, all within a blink of an eye.  Sometimes I wish I had a camera surgically inserted in my optic nerve so I would never have to leave my camera behind.

While these are all of the conscious reasons for my addiction, I have had another reason that I don’t usually talk about.  It’s about memories.  Professional photographers usually talk about the scene, the moment, and the capture.  The hokey idea about capturing memories is something reserved for amateurs with their point-and-shoots taking pictures of their kids without concern of f-stop, shutter speed, ISO, lighting conditions, or even negative space.

Me and Jim in Ketchikan, Alaska.

In my personal life, there aren’t many people in my family that take pictures at every event.  That’s probably because I’m already there, DSLR and additional lighting equipment in tow, sometimes at the expense of annoying certain relatives who think it’s “too much.”

Everyone has their own personal reasons for wanting to capture memories.  For me, I think it has been somewhat unconscious until recently.  I never really knew my grandparents.  My maternal grandfather died before I was born and both my grandmothers died when I was about 2 years old.  My paternal grandfather passed when I was 7 years old.  While I do remember him, my memories are dim and sparse.  While there are a few pictures of these people in some albums, it just hasn’t been enough.

When my daughter was born, one of my biggest fears was that she would not know her grandparents.  In fact, we have even second-guessed our own decision to not having children until we were in our mid-thirties.  Very recently, my father-in-law, Jim Lombardo, passed away.  My daughter is only 7 months old.

Flexing our muscles at Donna and my wedding.

Jim was a wonderful father-in-law.  We had similar off-color senses of humor.  He had a big heart and was always offering support and a helping hand without being asked.  He grew up in Manhattan near the Brooklyn Bridge, so I sometimes called him the Prince of the Lower East Side.  Not because he acted like royalty, but to the contrary.  He was a mensch, which is a Yiddish word describing someone as a person with integrity and honor, sometimes misinterpreted into English as a “prince.”  When I got Donna’s engagement ring, I went to Jim to ask for his blessing, telling him it would be an honor to call him my father-in-law.  He told me that he already considered me part of the family.

After Jim passed, I started looking for photographs.  I found quite a few and put some up on my personal Facebook account to share with family and friends.  I included photos of our trips to Aruba and Alaska and at family events.  One of my favorites is of him and me posing like muscle men while wearing tuxedos at my wedding.  There is also a shot of Jim with my brother-in-law, Dominick, and my daughter.  It was the last time we spent with him at home before he went to the hospital.

When I posted that last one, Dominick immediately made it his profile picture.  He also wrote, “All these captured moments are thanks to my brother in law who never put down his camera – thank you, Jason.”

 (Jason Schlosberg)

James Lombardo, Dominick Lombardo, Jocelyn Schlosberg.

Since Jim’s death, I have experienced significant waves of emotion.  Once again my eyes welled up with Dominick’s appreciation and with my own realization that part of my motivation for photography is to capture memories for moments just like this.  It didn’t matter that the lighting was harsh or that I took the photo with my video camera, which produced somewhat noisy, low-res photos.  I captured a moment of Jim, Dom, and Jocelyn all looking happy and within each others arms.  My addiction was suddenly justified.

 

 

 

Becoming Poseidon

I used to hate science. I did poorly in high school biology and by the time I reached college, the only science class I took was Astronomy with Lab. The lab portion was just going out to Emory’s Lullwater Park at night to watch the sky with our telescopes. It was an awesome cakewalk.

Seattle Fountain

 
 (Jason Schlosberg)

1/1000, f/4.0, ISO 200

 (Jason Schlosberg)

1/30, f/22, ISO 200


But my fascination and love of photography brought me back to science. In an earlier post, Zen and the Art of Photography, I discussed how a good photographer embraces both the artful and technical sides of the craft. Well, what’s more Zen (and Taoist) than running water?

Waterfalls near the Alluvial Fan, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado (Jason Schlosberg)

Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, 1/8, f/45, ISO 100.

To control the capture of running water’s visual beauty, a photographer should be well-acquainted with some basic laws of physics. By controlling water with our cameras, we can become like Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea.

When taking a photo, light passes through the shutter and smacks up against your camera’s sensor. In “olden times,” the light would hit film, which due to its chemical properties would react to the varieties of light to create the negative. In any event, if the light moves, it would streak against the sensor (or film), resulting in a blurry image. That’s why, to avoid blur, it is important to ensure a fast shutter speed and to use a tripod.

In the case of running water, however, you may want that blur either to get a sense of motion or to achieve that beautiful, soft, ethereal whiteness we all know and love. To do so, slow down your shutter speed. Try a thirtieth (1/30) or even a quarter (1/4) second. Live dangerously and try a few seconds. Experiment to get your best effect. Factors such as water speed and quantity, as well as the available light, will impact the optimal shutter speed choice.

At the top of this post, there are two shots of running water with the exact same composition. However, the one with the crisper water was shot at 1/1000 of a second and the one with the softer flow was taken at 1/30 of a second. When taking these, I had to compensate for the light by changing the aperture and making sure that the focus was on the flowers, which served as an immobile foreground element. This was where aperture priority mode certainly came in handy. While both speeds provide pleasant results, note the emotional and visual differences.

Great Falls, Virginia  
Sole kayaker rowing upriver in the rapids, Great Falls Park, Virginia (Jason Schlosberg)

1/30, f/45, ISO 800.

Autumn leaves on wet rocks over a rushing river, Great Falls Park, Virginia (Jason Schlosberg)

.5, f/20, ISO 1600


But here’s the rub. Once you slow down your shutter speed, everything in the picture, including the surrounding elements, chance being blurred. To avoid this possibility, use a tripod. And unless it’s waterproof, keep it out of the water to avoid lasting damage.

Multiple water fountains spurting golden and blue streams, Crystal City Water Park, Arlington, Virginia (Jason Schlosberg)

Crystal City Water Park, Arlington, Virginia. 1/8, f/20, ISO 100.

But what if there is too much light? If there is, keeping the shutter open long enough to get your optimal level of water softness may actually result in an overexposed image. Not only will the water be blown out, but so will much else of the photo. The most popular solution is to shrink your aperture. This is what I did in the first pictures above. However, that would probably take away your control over the depth of field, a problem with larger landscape images. A more creative solution is to use one or more neutral density filters to decrease the amount of light that enters your camera. You can always use darker filters or just put a bunch on top of each other to experiment.

So, to sum up, here are some tips:

  • Set a slow shutter speed.
  • Shrink the aperture, or just use aperture priority mode.
  • Use a tripod.
  • Consider using an ND filter.
  • Focus on something not moving.
  • Stay dry!