Youtube Ride Channel, How to Skate Vids - Composition with Michael Burnnet, Part Two

In yesterday's released part two of the 'In Focus' series by Ride, Michael Burnett explains composition with more detail and specifics on skate photography.

He explains giving enough room in photos, and not cropping subjects to the minimum, which makes obstacles larger and adds more drama to the trick and rider.
Burnett also talks about using a shallow depth of field for portraits and other still shots, by using a large aperture like f2.8, which will have the subject in focus and the background out of focus. A large aperture is definitely used in various way and reasons in all photography, good element to experiment and play with.
Depending on available context, surrounding and what story you want to tell with your photos, he also explains that you should only fit what you need in your photos by filling up the frame, by getting close up to the skater, but if there is from to work with like spectators you may want to be farther away from the skate to include that as context to the photo.
Fish eye lenses are the most distinctly popular used with skate and other action sport photography for their distorted effects that can easily emphasize scale while still remaining close up to the skater and subjects.
Alternatively, Burnett shows how a longer lens can compress distances and also be effective.
He talks about something I've used before, but never thinking how much more effective it can be when applied to skate photography and similar motive objects, panning with mixed lighting. This is when you shoot with a secondary light source and have a slow shutter speed which results in a focused subject by your the flash and while you pan the background blurs.

What is great and absolutely helpful about these In Focus videos  is that Michael talks about these tips and shows past photos where they were applied, but then also at the end he does some live shooting with some of the pointers.
At the end of this video he is also encouraging to all photographers, even reaching out to beginners.

Youtube Ride Channel, How to Skate Vids - Composition with Michael Burnnet

I just came across this video from the Ride's Youtube Skate Channel.

In this part 1 video from a series of 2 called "In Focus" Thrasher Magazine's Michael Burnett explains composition for skateboard photography.

He points out several tips, from above and below angles, plain backgrounds, and geometric shapes and patterns.
Some of these elements can also be applied to street photography and inspire ideas for any other kind of photography.

Feature Shoot's Online Group Show #2: Window Seat

This past Friday Feature Shoot posted it's second online group show, Window Seat. They opened submissions on February 20th, detailing the topic about being photos taken from the windows of airplanes.
Although this isn't Feature Shoot's first online group show, having their first earlier in February, this is really the first time I've come across a collection of photos online being called in a group show. I've seen where sites ask for submissions of particular themes and guidelines, then posts selected works like A Dirty Job's themes of the month or like some of the fun projects Jeff Hamada posts on Booooooom.
I have two initial thoughts about Feature Shoot's online Group Shows.
1) How quick an online group show can be when it's open to submissions to anyone who saw it on FS before the deadline.
2) How little detail there was on Feature Shoot's call for submission, which to me extends to how impersonal these kinds of open submissions and group shows can be.

From the call for submission to the deadline, photographers had just two weeks to take, edit, and select photos to submit. As little time as that is and how unfair that can seem, I'm sure there were many submissions and the more significant point to me is how quick a group show was put together, because it was online, and nothing had to be printed or extensively organized as a real group show exhibit would come with.

With the short description in the call for submissions participants and readers don't sense any unity Feature Shoot's group show would have, not like a physical group show exhibit would. As a viewer I didn't see a personal connection between the photos and the photographers, neither did I have a collective impression from the photos, which are things I'd normally experience with a real physical group or solo show exhibit.
With such a short notice for a group show, without a more overall personal significant motif for the show besides particular images, photographers don't have more time to think about and create a more meaningful selection of works this results in a less cohesive union for a group show.

Photographer Elizabeth Weinberg tweeted it best Saturday, "A lotta photography out there that's beautiful but got no soul. I look for that magical union of the two."
When all a photographer is going for is a nice photo, it's not that special if it isn't important to them.

With a quick and short kind of online group show post like Feature Shoot's compiled of maybe meaningful work to their photographers, lacks a direct description of what the work is about like the way physical group show exhibits do, and a viewer does not get the same experience.

However I feel about online group shows, I would like to note I did enjoy some photos in Window Seat, especially from Adrian Studer, William Rugen, Rebecca Stumpf, and Meighan Ellis. (Would have be nice to know at least where the photos were taken.)

The New York Times' The Lively Morgue

The New York Times recently created The Lively Morgue, a tumblr site for publishing it's massive archive of photos. Since the NY Times's first illustrated publication in 1896 it has been using photos to document and share global history, and since then has collected over 5 million prints.


The Lively Morgue gives us a sense of what kinds of photos they will post and where the photos are coming from in their description, "It was an era of bold global exploration to the North and South Poles. Aviation was evolving at breathtaking speed. Russia was in revolt. Pictures. New York took its place as a global cultural capital. The world was again convulsed in a war that ended with the atomic bomb. More pictures. Civil rights were won on the battleground, while explorers turned their sights to the Moon, Mars and beyond. Pictures and more pictures."


In their posts, the photos will be accompanied with short caption and sometimes extensive back stories. Photos and extended back stories will be posted on the Lens Blog. To enhance backstories, back side of prints will also be shown, providing notes from the photographer, contexts in which the photo was used, and other information. The New York Times will even have some prints seen on The Lively Morgue available for purchase.


I am beyond excited to follow The Lively Morgue, to see eras of the past, historical cultures I'll be only able to know through these photos and the stories shared about them. It will be great to learn about things of the past that I would have otherwise not even heard of. Projects and sites like this give the newer generations a piece of the past and opportunity to be engaged and be touched in some way by people and life styles so foreign to their era. The past has been the foundation and still influences the present and should be more known and widespread. If you're into photography, history, or older American and world culture, The Lively Morgue is definitely something you should consider checking out and following.

6 foot Negatives for Vanishing Cultures

When I first skimmed NPR's first page on my phone about Dennis Manarchy making 6 foot negatives portraits I was beyond interested and impressed. To hear about a photographer using a camera that big to make that size film negatives sounds insane, especially considering the whole process of building the camera and developing that size negative. As digital becomes more widely used in print and online industries, it's a small amount of photographers that continue to use film and even few that push the limits and see what new things can be done. I remember last year when I came across the short video on Darren's Great Big Camera and was even blown away by that idea.  

Once I was able to go back to the NPR post and read more on why Manarchy was even doing anything with this scale of film I saw that this was more than just himself as a photographer, but a project to document historical Americans. For now, Manarchy is using a prototype 35 foot long camera, but is hoping to raise funds with his kickstarter page to build a polished product for the project Vanishing Cultures. Manarchy's project will take him around the states to photograph people and cultures of America's history.



With the help of his team, Manarchy is certainly taking up a great project that is socially significant in remembering these people and documenting their portraits like never before, as well as literally huge in the photography community, especially with the camera's 200th year anniversary coming up. I cannot wait to see more from this project and see how this will inspire other photographer with large format film and what other creative projects will come.

Half Ladder Intro

As a young student, active photographer, and all around arts enthusiast I've more recently begun to attempt to realize what everything I'm doing is about and what solidifies my work and what will in the future. Half Ladder will serve as a platform for me to  think, discuss, and try to understand current issues and ideas in photography and the photography community. While sharing all this with you, I hope to gain insight that will aid in revealing what matters in photography, realize how I approach viewing photography and how it is that I am my own photographer.

I'll bring up information from other sites and explore their ideas to find a sense of meaning in their thoughts to make a connection with my own emerging ideology. I'll touch on specific photographers and artists and what is relevant about them.
There are several topics I'm thinking to discuss, and will do so more if I find other current reads on the topics, these are:
- Digital, film.
- Self publishing, zines.
- Art Collectives, Groups, Contributing.
- Schooling, self taught photographers.
- Differences, similarities between old contemporary and new contemporary work.
- Women as subjects and artists, Men as subjects and artists.
- Mainstream, glamour, pin-ups, street & other genres involving portraiture. & ideas of expectations about being a model, and how that's different in different types of photography.

And like I said write ups on living photographers and how they work, themes, and styles of their work, and current activities.

I hope to write more on ideas I come across when reading art and photo sites and other printed material, whether it's newly published or not, so I may not speak on everything from those topics, and will even talk on ideas not mentioned. Also, it's too natural that every photographer thinks and works differently so what I bring up will be slightly general, and not to specific to me, but will be what I find interesting or is worth noting. And because of how huge the photo world is I surely won't cover everything I'd like to.

Can't wait to see how Half Ladder comes along and progresses during my time here.