iPhone Photography, Travel Photography and Camera Reviews
Today’s photo was made high about La Jolla California from the top of Mt. Soledad. If you are ever visiting La Jolla, make a point of getting up there. It’s beautiful. If you’d like to see other great locations in La Jolla, check out my free travel guide. It’s full of photo locations, places to stay and things to do!
The photograph below has already hit the site, but I thought it would be fun to show you the view from Mt. Soledad at sunrise….
I shot this sunset outside of the small town of Elko, NV. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again….zoom or telephoto lenses will often make better landscape lenses than wide angle lenses. There’s no way I could have achieved the tonal recession in the image with a wide angle lens. I was using one of my favorite all around lenses, the Nikon 18-200 VR. If you are interested, I posted an image heavy review of this lens here.
Photographer’s Note: This is a single image processed using Lightroom 4.
The Experiment: It is time to reveal the experiment I was conducting out in the Nevada Desert. What I wanted to find out was am I naturally telephoto or wide eyed. The experiment was simple, take a single versatile lens (in this case a Nikon 18-200) along on a 9 day road trip and photograph like crazy. I took my D7000 and 18-200 with me everywhere, and forced myself to never pass on a scene. Dark, light, cats or dogs…just make images. When I returned home, I analyzed the data to see if I naturally frame images below or above the normal 50mm mark. Well, it’s pretty apparent I have telephoto eyes. All but two of my images were composed below the 50mm mark.
Notes: I should note that I did have another camera and uber sexy lens along with me for another experiment I will share with you in the coming weeks. However, as an experiment control, I made an effort to leave the second body/lens behind when I would go out on daily photo walks.
Conclusion: I have given this a bit of thought, and this is what I arrived at. I’m still not sure I have purely telephoto eyes. It could be that telephoto lenses simply help enable the lazy photographer. As Jay Maisel says, ‘You are responsible for what is in your frame’. Well, it’s a lot easier to manage what’s in your frame if you isolate your subject with a telephoto lens. That being said, I could have both telephoto eyes and be a lazy photographer. I’m confident that I naturally see my compositions as isolated subjects in the chaos of the world’s canvas. However, I’m still trying to figure out if I’m lazy?
Photographer’s Note: As you know, I’m not a big ‘gear guy’. I dig whatever gets the job done, and for what I do, ‘all in one super zooms’ will often do it for me. Actually, most of the time. If you are interested, I posted a full review of this great Nikon 18-200 VR Lens on my reviews page (Click Here To Read) .
Jay Maisel quoted another artist who I’m not familiar with and said something along the lines of ‘waiting by the stage for the actors’. That was some serious paraphrasing, but I used the wisdom last week when the team decided to go to the thrift store. Instead of trying on smoke scented vintage tees, I headed down to the train depot and waited for the actors. This was the moment and gesture that I thought was the best.
FYI…Jay Maisel is today’s clue for my experiment last week. All will be revealed tomorrow!
Photographer’s Note: I mentioned Jay Maisel. If you are interested in learning more about him, checkout KelbyTraining.com (affiliate link). There is a three part series featuring him on a photo-walk on in NY and Paris. It’s pretty awesome if you are into learning from legendary photographers.
Ethics Note: Some of the links I provide on this site are from companies I’m an affiliate with. If you use them to purchase something, I do get a small percentage of the sale which helps this site continue to roll along.. That being said, I do stand behind all my affiliates as a paying customer. I never recommend something that I haven’t purchased myself already. I wanted to let you know so that you can decide to either avoid the links, or if you like the site you can choose to use them and help support it. No pressure. I’m cool either way.
This is John, we met him in a ghost town in eastern Nevada. He has lived here since 1974. Prior to that he was crew chief in the US Air Force. Not only does John coordinate the fire department, he also curates the museum. When we arrived in this small town the museum was closed. It took a local resident that drove to John’s house to let him know that he had visitors. He arrived shortly thereafter, let us in, and proceeded to tell us about the town and its history. After an hour or so, we had to hit the road. We left a modest donation and thanked him for his time.
If you remember back to a post I shared a couple weeks ago about trying to discover your calling, you might recall a bit I shared about my own. I mentioned that I personally enjoy meeting unique people in interesting places and sharing their story with a photograph. It’s something I haven’t done much of in the past, but it’s something I hope to do more of in the future. As regulars here, do you enjoy learning about the people that make this world unique? I’d be curious to hear your thoughts. Thanks!
As for today’s clue…the experiment I was conducting had to do with a tenant of this site. Anymore guesses?
