“Capturing Alaska”
    with Wayde Carroll






Working It!


 
    
   We’ve been getting some decent snow here in Anchorage over the last few days and it looks like it’s finally going to stick. The kids have already built the sledding ramp in the front yard and I’m looking forward to getting out in it as well. I get a thrill downhill skiing and cross- country skiing but my number one winter activity is snowshoeing. I love snowshoeing because it is similar to hiking, my number one summer activity. Also, it allows me to keep my camera out, carry a tripod, and take time to actually look around. It’s great to be able to get off the trodden paths and get in between the birch and spruce, make first tracks.
   I haven’t gotten out yet this week but I was thinking back on a stock shooting outing I took last winter with my friend Curtis Smith. I wanted to get some snowshoeing photos for my stock files so we headed south, just past Turnagain Pass, on a glorious winter day last March. What I want to show here is what’s possible with a little planning in a short period of time.
   I knew I wanted to shoot in this area because I had driven by it a couple of weeks prior. I was able to convince Curtis to come out strictly as a model, which is great because instead of just grabbing photos when I saw something interesting, I had someone who was willing to be directed and repeat things over and over if necessary. But, we both have families and I was only able to steal him for about half a day.
   Because I had scouted the area I had several shots I knew I wanted to try. I sketched out several ideas and brought them along incase my creativity gene froze up in the cold! The images here were all taken within an hour (It’s about an hours’ drive from Anchorage so we didn’t have a ton of time to be in the spot!) of each other and within a half mile radius.
   The first thing I always look for is an interesting background to shoot the action in. After identifying several,I then talked to Curtis about my ideas and directed him this way and that. It’s great to have a model! When something is really working you are free to have them repeat it as many times as it takes to get several different versions or just nail the perfect one.
   In the image of Curtis stepping over the viewer I was lying in the snow and had him walk directly over me several times. Each time I had to immediately clean off my camera, snow would drop off the snowshoes into my lens- and face!
   In the image of him silhouetted against the low sun, I had him run across that ledge four or five times. He enjoyed the work out and just getting out and I was thrilled with the resulting images.
   By planning and “working” the scene I was able to get a number of saleable images in a short amount of time. I can’t wait for the next shoot!

                       Image #1 

                       sample #1 

                       sample #2 

  “Capturing Alaska”
    with Wayde Carroll






Neutral Density Filter


 
    
   This past weekend I took my two children, seven- year old Jack, and three- year old Claire, up to Hatcher Pass to play in the snow. It was a glorious day with clear blue skies and warmth from the sun that made the frigid temperature bearable. A real plus when dealing with small children!
   I loved spending time with my kids. (I’ve never heard my daughter giggle so much as when I was pulling her through the snow on a tiny sled!) But a part of me couldn’t help wishing I could grab my camera from the car and head out for a day of shooting. I kept looking around and sighing “man, what a gorgeous day!”
   Luckily I got to at least scratch the itch a little.
   Once the sun started to drop and shadows filled the valley the temperature dropped dramatically. It was time to head in to Palmer for hot chocolate!
   As we were heading out we crossed over the Little Susitna River and I was able to grab a quick glimpse and I saw a scene I just had to try and capture. The protruding boulders in the river were capped with snow and one of the mountains in the background was bathed in the warm glow of the fading sun (see image #1). So I turned the car around, parked along the side of the road, grabbed my camera bag and tripod, and jumped out to find a decent composition.
 I also knew this would be a good example for this blog on when and how to use a neutral density filter.
   A what?
   I know, most of you haven’t heard of one much less carry one around but if you’re an aspiring photographer you should. Let me explain (as if you had a choice!).
   The beautiful scene before me held one serious photographic complication. The contrast range within the image was too great to be captured in one exposure. You see, the brightness of the sunlit mountain over powered the river, which was in full shadow. If I took a proper exposure for the mountain, the river would be seriously underexposed and rendered nearly black (see sample #1). If I exposed for the river, the mountain would be completely overexposed and become a white blob with no detail (see sample #2 ). This is where the neutral density filter comes in to play.
   A neutral density filter is a filter that has a neutral gray area that can be positioned over the brighter portion of your scene to bring its’ exposure reading closer to that of your darker area. You can get these filters with a gradual transition from light to dark or with a hard edged transition and you can get them in varying degrees of filtration from one stop on up to eight stops. Many photographers carry several variations for different circumstances but if you just want to buy one to start experimenting I would get a three-stop filter with the gradual transition from clear to neutral grey. The “neutral” color assures you accurate color rendition as opposed to a colored filter. That’s a good general filter I use a lot. Also, I would invest in one of the rectangular glass or hard plexi-glass systems that allow you greater control of positioning your filter.  I use the Singh- Ray Galen Rowell series. The circular screw on filters are gradated towards the middle and allow only one placement in your scene- in the middle.
   So, back to our scene. I found the composition (s) I liked and set up my camera on the tripod. Next I mounted the filter onto my lens. The best way to make sure your filter is positioned where you want it is to set a small aperture, f16 –f32, depress your depth of field preview button, and as you’re peering through your viewfinder, slowly slide your neutral density filter down until the gradation is where you need it. Now your ready to shoot!
   If you don’t have a depth of field preview you can make test exposures and check them on your screen and make adjustments as necessary.
   You can also solve this exposure problem by taking several different exposures- on a tripod- and combining them later in your photo editing software. I would much rather do a little extra work up front that will save me time later. Especially when you’re trying several different compositions. Good luck!

   “Capturing Alaska”
    with Wayde Carroll






Winter Tips


 
   
    Alaska is painfully beautiful at any time of year and the urge to get out my camera can strike at any time, but there is something magical about the winter. Once the temperatures drop and the snow takes hold for the season, everything about the land transforms. Not only is it dressed in form-fitting whiteness but it is quiet, slow. Creeks, rivers, and falls are still, except for possibly a faint trickling heard far below their frozen crusts. The animals out and about are fewer. One can easily escape to areas where no one has seemed to tread, at least not since the last snowfall.
    Alaska becomes the stereotype that forms in the minds of those who have never been here. White, jagged, mountain ranges. A steamy exhalation from a bull moose in the yard. Ice forming on the face of any who brave any form of physical activity outside.
    Unique weather phenomena are plentiful as well. On the same day you can wake up to a magical world covered in hoarfrost, encounter several sundogs, and witness a full display of the Aurora Borealis! A photographer’s paradise indeed!
    That said, winter also holds many challenges for the photographer. With the season almost upon us, I thought I’d throw out some tips I’ve learned through experience and fellow photographers.
    Most guidebooks tell you to always travel with a “buddy” just in case an emergency situation arises. This is great advice and should be heeded whenever possible but it can be difficult to find someone to hang out with every time you want to take photos. So, what I do is the following:
- Always you make sure you tell someone where you are going and when you’ll return.
- Pack the car with all items necessary to survive an overnight in sub-zero temperatures. If you head out for the day thinking you’ll be back for dinner and your battery dies, or a storm sets in…This includes extra dry clothes, fire starter, sub-zero rated sleeping bag, cell phone, extra food, water, stove, etc.. There are several books that give detailed lists for winter travel, weather it be backcountry skiing or just sticking to the roadway. It’s better to be over prepared than not.
Here are some tips for photographing in the cold:
- I have covered my tripod legs with foam PVC tube lining to keep my hands from contacting the freezing aluminum.
- I wear a heavy-duty winter glove when scouting around but have a thin glove on underneath. When it comes time to fiddle with my camera and lenses I take off the heavy gloves and can maneuver without fear of sticking to my camera.
- I always bring hand and feet warming packets just in case.
- I wear the recommended layers of clothing so I can cool off or heat up as I need. Nothing is worse than being wet from sweat and then having your clothes freeze up when you’re stationary.
- I bring several charged battery packs. I keep the unused packs next to my body to keep them warm and interchange them with the in-camera batteries that inevitably lose power in temps around zero and below.
- I have a waterproof camera cover I carry in case of precipitation.
- Once your camera is exposed to the cold it’s best to keep it out. If you jump in to a warm car to move to your next location it is good to place your camera into a zip-lock bag so that the condensation builds up on the outside of the bag instead of on your camera and its’ sensitive components. In a pinch I’ve wrapped up my camera in my coat with no problems-so far.
- I like to wear my contact lenses instead of my glasses in winter because my breath always seems to fog up the glasses as I’m trying to compose in the viewfinder!
- I keep my water in an inside layer as well to prevent freezing.
- Because there I’m surrounded by so much whiteness I keep a close eye on my exposure and histogram. Typically it is good to open up-or over expose- your scene by one to one and a half stops. Because your camera meter is trying to make everything a middle grey tone this ensures your whites will be white.
- Most importantly, never go too far out of your comfort zone. If a situation seems too tricky or dangerous, it probably is. Don’t do it. Don’t cross that river unless you know it’s frozen solid.
- I always check the U.S. forest service web site (http://www.fs.fed.us/r10/chugach/glacier/advisory.html ) to see if there are any avalanche probability updates in the area I’m heading to.
- I always bring along a thermos full of Java!
I hope this helps out. Have a great time capturing images this winter. Be prepared and be safe.
 

Petroglyph Beach State Historic Park, Wrangell Island.

“Capturing Alaska”

with Wayde Carroll

Previsualization

This week’s photo is a special one for me. Not only because I really like it but because I pictured the image I wanted to take in my head before ever arriving at the location.
While I was researching locations for a two and a half week long stock shooting trip in southeast Alaska I discovered that there was a beach on Wrangell Island, Petroglyph Beach State Historic Park, where you could still find 3,000 to 10, 000 thousand year old rock carvings just laying around out in the open! I thought this was so cool. It’s amazing to me that you can still find historical artifacts that haven’t been destroyed or defaced in a public location. It became a high priority on my trip.
While making all my other preparations for the trip I kept thinking of the petroglyphs. Would I find one? Would I be lucky and have nice light for a great image? I had searched the internet and found a few great images by other photographers and I knew it would be a challenge to come up with something a little different.
I really wanted to make the stone carvings stand out from their surroundings and I wanted the image(s) to evoke a mood, one of a different time, primordial. Dusk is a time that conjures up images of mystery so I knew that was the time I wanted. To make the carvings stand out I decided to try and use some off camera flash at an angle that would add definition to the grooves in the stone. I also knew that I wanted to use a wide angle up close to emphasize them more and to include the pristine Alaskan surroundings.
I arrived, by ferry, in Wrangell about two hours before dusk, dropped my backpack off at the hostel, and headed straight for Petroglypgh Beach. I hustled the mile there and was just thrilled to find that it was even better than I’d hoped for. There wasn’t another person around and I was able to find several carvings fairly quick. I chose my favorite location, set up my tripod and waited for the sun to dip below the horizon. There were clouds and a slight drizzle but the mountains across the Zimovia Straights were visible. I opened the small umbrella I carry to cover my camera, and my self. The location was just magnificent and I had no trouble silently watching and imagining what life could have been like here when the Tlingets and Tsimshian ruled these islands.
When the time came the rain had stopped and I tried several different compositions, horizontal and vertical. I included myself in some as well to add perspective. In each, I underexposed the ambient light by about one stop and fired my hand held flash five or six times from various locations and angles to make the artwork and surrounding rocks stand out. I did this by attaching a transmitter to my cameras’ flash mount that would fire my flash from a distance. I also had a remote trigger that would release the cameras’ shutter from up to fifty feet away. Therefore, I could hold my flash where I wanted and then take an exposure with the remote. Because the camera was secured on a tripod I was able to later combine several exposures in Photoshop and get the lighting effect I wanted.
I know many of the great outdoor photographer’s, such as Galen Rowell and Frans Lanting, have achieved such amazing results because of this kind of planning. This was the first time that I put their technique to work. It was very satisfying to actually pull it off! This “previsualizing” may become a habit.

                                             Image #1

                                             Image #2

                                              Image #3

                                                “Capturing Alaska”

                                                 with Wayde Carroll






                                                      Histograms


 Because more people are now shooting digitally rather than with film, and because I shoot with digital SLR’s, I thought I’d bring up the ever present, largely ignored histogram.
 Most people tend to take an image, make sure it appears ok on their LCD and then move on to the next image. It’s great to be able to see that you’re exposure is close with just a glance at the back of your camera but what you see on the LCD monitor isn’t always an accurate way to judge your exposure.
 The brightness of your LCD may be off from what you actually see on your computer monitor. Some perfectly exposed images appear too bright or too dark on the cameras’ monitor. Also, the surrounding ambient light can effect how you see the LCD image. If you are shooting outside on a bright, sunny, day it can be very hard to see the image on your screen and therefore it appears too dark. If you are shooting at night or in deep shadow the image can appear brighter than normal in comparison to your surroundings. To add to the mix, the brightness of your LCD image can vary with a slight tilt of your camera. You need to be looking at it straight on.
 Some of you may ask “Why does any of this matter when you can just fix it in Photoshop?”
 Well, while it is true that you can easily make corrections in Photoshop and other photo editing software programs, there are reasons why achieving an optimal exposure is still desirable.
 If my exposures are spot on to begin with, it will save me valuable time in the post-processing phase of my workflow. Digital files usually need some slight tweaking, weather it’s a bit of sharpening, contrast adjustment, or color saturation etc., so why add an extra step to the process?
 Also, if my image is overexposed or underexposed there is often times unwanted contrast and color degradation after the exposure is brought in line. These problems can often be dealt with as well but at a much higher cost time-wise.
 This brings me, finally, to our subject: histograms.
 Most digital cameras today come with a feature that will display a histogram on their image-viewing screen. If it does not come up automatically, check out your manual and you should be able to call it up. A histogram is a graph which shows you the tonal range captured in your image. 

 What’s important to remember is that the shape of your histogram doesn’t matter, it’s the placement on the graph that we are concerned with.
As you look at the histogram the dark tones are represented on the far left, the mid-tones in the middle, and the highlights are shown on the far right. What you want to do is check your histogram after an exposure and make sure the tonal range matches the scene before you. If you are shooting at night (see image #1) your histogram will be show most of the data on the left side. If there are some highlights etc you will still see them represented as a smaller amount of data on the far right side. If you are shooting a very bright or high key image  (see image #2) your data will be heavy on the right side of your graph. Therefore any mid-tone image (see image #3) will have a nice distribution all the way across your histogram.
 You still need to be careful within these guidelines as well. If you are shooting the night scene and your histogram is showing all the data going off the left side of your graph you need to be wary. All of your data should be contained within the graph if you expect to hold detail. With the night exposure you should be able to see where the data on the left just ends before going off the screen and some will be in the mid-range and highlight area. If you have no data on the right you are underexposed and will lose detail in the shadows. The converse is true for the high key image. If you have no data on the left then you are overexposed and will lose detail in your highlights. Most cameras have little flashing dots that appear when you have areas that may be losing detail. Use them as an additional tool to help notice discrepancies with your exposures.
 With proper exposures you will save time, headache, and produce higher quality prints. Good luck!