Be Exposed #10 and technical notes...

This month while shooting Be Exposed, I decided to try and switch up my style a little bit. When you shoot something on a monthly basis changing things up is a nice treat for viewers and photographer alike – assuming the change works.

Rather than use the normal equipment and try and find a new way to look at things, I opted to change equipment a little. This forced me to have to shoot from different vantage points, effectively changing my normal style.

The two changes I made this month were 1) no flash, no matter what and 2) shooting with the standard, cheap Canon 50mm lens instead of a zoom.

Those who know me know my extreme hatred of on-board flash units. As for the 50mm lens, it both shackles and liberates a photographer. You can no longer use a zoom to frame your picture. Instead, you have to play it where it lies. You are forced to compose the best shot you can from with the view you have. But this lens offers a very wide ASA, thereby giving the photographer new options.

All of these pictures were shot in RAW format. It takes extra time to manipulate every shot, but you learn to edit more selectively. The big benefit here is that RAW allows you to sharpen, play with curves, adjust light/contrast and manipulate light temperatures. Anyone who shoots a lot of candid NEEDS to shoot RAW. Most cameras that shoot RAW come with free software to process it, so you don't have to buy Lightroom.

Now for some technical crap on this shoot. If this helps new photographers learn about shooting manual, then good. The rest of you should just avoid reading it -

The lighting at Be Exposed is always very low. To make up for this, these shots were taken at about 1/40th of a second with an ASA of between 2.8 and 1.8, and at an ISO of 800. There are definite pluses and minuses to these settings -

1/40^th of a second is a very slow shutter speed, and is tricky when the camera is hand held. On the plus side, a slow shutter speed allows you to take shots in a poorly lit areas. The bad side is that you can end up with blurry pictures. This either results from the photographer shaking or the subject moving. You may think you don't move very much in a 40^th of a second, but trust me you're wrong.

ASA of 2.8-1.8 – this also aids in low light photography. The ASA is a measure of how wide open the lens is. The smaller the number, the wider the opening. The wider open the lens, the more light hits the sensor/film. However, the more wide open the lens is the less depth of field in the picture. When the singer (up front) is in focus, but the lead guitarist (slightly back) is sort of blurry the the ASA was wide open. Perhaps too wide open.

800 ISO – the larger the number of the ISO, the lower the light you can work with. Frankly, these pictures could have benefited from being shot at 1600 (the next step up). But when you do that there is always a danger of the few well lit areas resulting in burnt spots on your pictures. The biggest problem with shooting at a high ISO is noise (called “grain” in traditional photography). If you look closely at a picture shot with a high ISO you'll see there is no gentle color flow. Rather, you will see chunks of colors. They are small, but they can really detract from a picture's quality. However, there are cases where extreme grain adds to the shot.

Carl...

 

Carl was a World War II vet. He lived for decades in a home for mentally ill veterans - Kenosha's Dayton Hotel. You can see him in a video made by Desire and Jeff some years ago (2003 I think). As the video shows, Carl is not too good at communicating. His deep southern accent, complete lack of teeth and maybe even his schizophrenia made him really hard to understand.

Once, his niece came to the diner (the one in the video) and I waited on her.  She was up for her yearly visit to see Carl, a trip that started way down in their home state of Alabama. The niece explained that his mental problems bgan shortly after World War II. She thought they were a result of his duties in the military. As an army man assigned to a ship in the Pacific, his job was to recover bodies from the ocean so they could be i.d.ed and sent home.

The work proved too much and he cracked.

While he was pretty quiet and sort of addled, he was a very nice customer. He never had money to tip - but most of the guys who live at the vets' hotel are on fixed incomes so none of them tip. Their morning cup of coffee is one of the day's very few luxuries and tipping was way out of their tiny budgets. But the diner employees didn't care. Carl was just so nice that being good to him made you feel really good yourself.

Some of the guys at the Dayton panhandle to make extra money. Carl preferred to try and sell things he found on the street. Watches, charms, rings, rocks - it didn't matter, he'd try and sell it. People visiting the diner (and occasionally the wait) staff felt pity for him, so they would buy the crap he offered. Or they would just cut to the chase and pay for his coffee or breakfast.

Carl never showed anger at the lot life had dealt him. He was a truly happy, totally vulnerable individual. There was something about that mixture that made people feel really good when they helped him. And in that way, Carl made people better than they normally were.

Carl passed away sometime in 2006 or 2007. He as in his 80's.