TAKING PICTURES OR MAKING IMAGES, A PRO OR AN AMATEUR???

In the world today, cameras are everywhere, it seems most people have one with them. If not a DSR or DLSR, it is a point and shoot or the omnipresent cell phone camera. If you're a celebrity and you're doing anything out in public, you had better not mind sharing it with the world. There is a great chance someone is taking your picture!!! If you're walking on a busy street or a beautiful beach, someone might be taking your picture. Maybe even me!! 


Years ago when we photographed a wedding, we had to be concerned with "Uncle Bill" and his camera. He would follow us around taking photographs as we were making the bridal formal images. As we were asking the bride and groom to look at us, he would be off to our side snapping away, which could be distracting for everyone, especially with his flash going off a second before ours. 


Professional photographers learned to coexist with him, asking him to allow us to make our images and then we would ask the bride and groom to hold the pose for one more minute while their uncle took his pictures. That worked pretty well, although we had one uncle start arranging people into a different pose! We had to laughingly tell him that he wouldn't being doing that now, but that we were sure the couple would be more than happy to pose later in the night for him. 


Today we need to be concerned with Uncle Bill and Auntie Jane and Cousins Harry, Melissa and Elvis, all with their cameras and all wanting to take photographs. Oh, for those days of not so long ago when everyone was at the open bar getting pleasantly bombed and leaving the photography to the professional photographers!!! (I say that with tongue planted firmly in cheek!!).


Now please understand me, I come not to bury the amateur photographer but to praise him. His pictures of his family will live after him. The evilly bad ones will be deleted. I really think it is wonderful that so many people are taking an interest in photography: if they are in fact taking an interest in photography and not just shooting away on program mode. Can you get a good picture if you do not know the basics, if you have not studied some of the masters? Sure, you might get a very good one. 


The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare.  


I would guess it is the same with photography. But, if you take that great picture, can you take the exact same picture under different light, different environment?? Do you know how you took that picture, I mean besides pushing the shutter release button?


If you have a DSLR and you do not know what the aperture priority mode is and how to use it, if you just keep it in P (Program auto mode) then that is just one reason you're not a professional photographer. If you call yourself one and worse, charge people as if you were one, well, then shame on you!! P does not stand for Professional! It takes years of practice and studying to become a professional.


I have said in the past that in my opinion, the most important ability that any photographer needs is vision. Unless you're shooting totally raw street candids, I believe a photographer is being paid for his or her vision. That being said the photographer also needs to know his photographic tools, how best to use them and why your using them. Sometime you need to shoot in manual mode if you do not then you will miss some images!! If you're taking pictures at a wedding during the "kiss" or at the cutting of the cake and your camera's battery stops working or someone lowers the lights so now you're in darkness, do you know what to do? You cannot ask for a do over! You need to nail it the first time!!


I think there is a big difference between taking pictures and  making professional images. You add a piece of yourself to your images.You have a style that you have developed and it is intrinsically yours. Another clue that you're not a professional is if you're asked what your style is and you don't understand the question. That might be a clue that you need to study this craft!! For this is a craft, a wonderful rewarding craft and like all crafts it takes works to somewhat master it. I say somewhat because I'm  sure you cannot find one of the true greats of photography who would tell you they have mastered their craft! It is always evolving and the tools are always changing and you need to keep learning and practicing. Some examples of these points will be made clear by a night we had last week.


Phyllis and I went to dinner at a great place in the Port Saint Lucie area, Sailor's Return. They have great food (best grouper I have had in Florida), entertainment and are located in a harbor. Your table is just a few feet from the water and the boats. You can see great sunsets, dream about owning a boat like the ones docked here and enjoy a wonderful evening there. If you ever visit, ask if Jonathan could wait on your table. He really  has a great knowledge of the menu, wines and especially rums!!!! He also has a great personality and will help make your dinner even more enjoyable!! 


As always, I had my camera with me that night. I tend to find something to shoot each time we are there! Sometimes, Phyllis wishes I didn't, especially when I photograph her dinner!!! This is a snapper which was fried whole. Looks like Viagra was one of the spices!!!!

As we were finishing up our meal, the sun was setting and I shot this image from our table.

It's not a bad sunset, not as warm as I would have liked.  I made a change in camera of my white balance and aperture settings. Then when I did my post production, I made a few adjustments. This was all done in Lightroom!


I cropped it, adjusted my exposure a little and tweaked the saturation and after sharpening in Photoshop, I had this image.

It's not really that different but I like it better because it is how I saw the image in my mind! As I have written before, I tend to see in color (saturated a little) and in wide screen format.


We finished dinner and started walking down the boardwalk. Regular readers of our blog know that I have photographed from here before http://jpweddingphotograpy.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-i-photograph-silhouettes.html. What can I say! I get creative after dinner and drinks lol!!
I saw the sunset was changing, getting warmer and the light was spreading across the sky. I took this image.

I guess it is okay but I knew I could do better with just a few in camera adjustments. I adjusted my white balance and exposure and changed my in camera composition! In the next few images of this sunset, I was changing my in camera's exposure from 60th of a second to a 20th of a second. My F stop went from F8 to F13. These changes were used to darken my exposure and saturate the colors.
This is what happened after I tweaked saturation and exposure in Lightroom.

 I then tweaked it a little more creating what I 'saw' in the sunset.

Bringing my exposure down even more made the saturation richer and deeper! 


I wanted to show you one more image of the sunset. For this one, I took it into a program I use occasionally called, Nik's Color Efex Pro3. In here, you can make some real changes to an image.
Sometimes I will use it to get the images of what I 'see' in my mind's eye, in the part of my imagination that helps create my style.

As you can see, there's a pretty drastic change in the color and exposure. I could do this in Lightroom or Photoshop but in Efex it is much easier and most importantly, faster. When you're working on 1500 wedding images, speed is very important.


We have driven over and under a bridge that goes from behind to beyond Sailor's Return. I have wanted to photograph from under the bridge for six months but we have either been with other people, too early for sunset or had other plans. But tonight was the night we planned getting here at a good hour and being alone. 


We drove over to a park that is right under the bridge and saw plenty of people. Quite a few people were fishing from a walkway that went under the bridge. I was not crazy about seeing the people but I knew that if I wanted to photograph this bridge and not be here at 2AM, I had to work around them. 


One of the things that caught my eye was the lights under the bridge. They gave off a warm glow that I wanted to capture. I started shooting and moving on the walkway that led away from the bridge. In under ten minutes, I took fifty-one images, moving fast without a tripod and using a lamppost to help support me and the camera. 


My F stop started at F13 at 1/6th of a second but I realized that I could not keep my hands steady enough at that speed. At 1/8 and F10, I was getting a pretty sharp image and the exposure was good, too. I settled into 1/20th of a second at F6 for awhile and as the natural light left, I went to F2.8 and 1/30. 


I took many images because I was always moving and looking for a better image and composition that worked best in horizontal and vertical. I tend to see landscapes more in horizontal but as you will see, I found a few I liked in vertical. I moved away from the bridge getting more and more of its expanse and then back again toward it. Another reason I moved away was to try and take most of the people out of the image. These are some of the images I made that night. In this first one, you can see some people.

In this next one, I changed composition in camera. I also used Photoshop's cloning tool to take a few people standing at the beginning of the walkway out of the shot. 

 
These two images (above and below) are pretty close to being the same but I zoomed my lens out in the second one to include a closer view of the beginning of the bridge and less of the shoreline on the other side.




     You can see a slight change in the exposure in these two.

   
        The one below is my favorite of the horizontal images.

These are a few verticals. The one below was made after I changed
the exposure to allow more light in. It is my favorite vertical.

This last one was made after I walked back under the bridge. You can see people fishing in it.

What I loved about these images was the warm colors of the lights and the cool color of the night sky. I just really loved the contrast in them. I also loved the lines of the bridge, the strong lines that seemed to bend in my images. This was a scene that I saw for over six months and thought about a lot before taking the images. I knew what I wanted, how I wanted to highlight those colors and the lines. 


I thought about how I wanted to accomplish those goals, then when I arrived, there were people, some in bright white clothes. I had to adjust my composition and my exposures the whole time because of them. Not haphazardly but with a good knowledge of my tools and the eye I have developed over many years of photographing and making images.


This is not a post about amateurs, we all start out as one. This is more about what a pro is and what an amateur is and who you should hire. Would you hire someone with an Ipod and a speaker to provide the music at your event? If you would, then you might hire a photographer who has never shot an event for pay or who has one camera and a zoom. He might tell you that with this great zoom lens, he can get all your images. He might show you six to twelve good images. But if this is one of the most important days in your life, is that who you want to trust with your memories? Do you want images you will proudly show your kids or the pictures that will stay in the closet? It is up to you!!!

WHY IS IT SECOND NATURE FOR A WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER TO PHOTOGRAPH NATURE!

Are we wedding photographers who photograph nature or nature photographers who photograph weddings?? I am always being asked that question in one form or another. My answer is always the same, I am a photographer! I mean why do I need to put more of  label on myself than that? Hell, I was proudly called a "writetographer" by a wonderful writer, Sulekha Rawat. 

I also photograph landscapes, portraits, pets and children. Quite simply, I am a photographer, I think photography everyday, hell I think of it pretty much every hour. You go to a movie or watch TV and hopefully you enjoy the film. I'm seeing scenes and thinking, "That would make a great image". I am photographing something or do post production every day!  

I have photographed many things: the immense happiness of a wedding day, the absolute wonder of the Grand Canyon, some of the great cities of Italy, the innocence of a child, the love in the eyes of a newly engaged couple and the hell on earth of the 9/11 rubble a short ten days after the attacks. I think photographing all these types of images improves me as a photographer. 

As a wedding/event photographer, I lean on many of the skills that I have honed while shooting in nature. Let me give you three examples: 

1) Stamina - Our average wedding day is eleven hours. We start with the bride photographing her preparation about two hours before the ceremony and end our day after the last dance. You need plenty of stamina to stay on your feet carrying a camera, flash and two or three lenses (14 lbs) around all day. On the other hand, if you're out in nature shooting wildlife or landscape, you're also carrying a tripod and a camera bag with all kinds of equipment  (average 24 lbs). You're walking, hiking and climbing great distances over uneven terrain for anywhere from four to eight hours. Believe me, stamina is important in either area.

2) Creativity - Do you know who wants to see new creative images the most? It should be the photographer. When I am shooting a wedding or a landscape, I do not want to cookie cut the images. Now, it is inevitable that some wedding images will be like other wedding images and that a mountain scene might look like other mountain scenes. But a good photographer will look for ways to juice it up, make the images either completely unique or at least have a unique quality to them. They will have a vision that shines through no matter what they are photographing.

3) Ability to think on their feet - Photography is challenging if done right! In the middle of a wedding or in the middle of a landscape,  something can change in a second. The bride's daughter (about three years old) leaves her pew to run up to her mother and she isn't leaving. You're in Alaska photographing a grizzly across a river from where you are and he suddenly charges in your direction. Believe me, you do not have the ability to call a time out in either example. You better be prepared and know what to do and what to look for in each situation.

What is the most important skill a photographer needs for any type photography?? Vision, the ability to see the important part of what is in front of him in his own unique style. 

It seems people have really liked the series of images from Arizona and what was going to be a single post has evolved into a series.

Today, I thought I would you show you a series of images taken in Sedona, Arizona. These were taken in 2010 on and around a mesa  (a large flattop mountain) Below is an example of one.

Ten years previous to this trip, we had climbed a mesa, a little over  a mile up on a trail of switchbacks with some hand over hand climbing. We had made it to the top and walked around looking at the views on a beautiful Sedona morning. The top was also a little over a mile around. I thought it would be a great idea to try it again ten years later. We were awake and on the road by 6 AM searching for our Mesa (Bear Mountain). We found the road and after a short while, I saw it right in front of us.

 

When we reached it, we parked and looked up to where we were planning on climbing: to the very top!!!

          As I looked at it, three questions came to my mind:

1) Can a mountain grow taller in ten years?????

2) Am I crazy??

3) What the hell is Phyllis doing here with me, after all she is the college educated one of the two of us???

But I'm a guy, so naturally I do not share any of these thoughts with Phyllis. Instead I ask in a confident, strong voice (OK, I'm writing this, that's how I remember it) "Okay, lets go, before we loose the light." We started out not seeing anyone on the mountain. We would seemingly be the first ones on it today. 

The climb can be dangerous and there are some areas where you need to be careful. One misstep and you could have a pretty nasty fall. We would stop and rest every so often. You need to focus on each step. There were areas when I would put my equipment down, (camera, vest with extra lenses, assorted equipment and a tripod) weighing about fifteen pounds and climb a five ft trail going pretty much straight up. When I was up and had a steady foothold, Phyllis would hand me all of our equipment and I would then be ready for Phyllis, when she reached a point that I could help her up. We stopped right before the very top and rested. We were tired but pretty happy that we did it; ten years later we climbed the same mesa and made it to the top!!

You can see Phyllis is happy to be able to rest after we made it to the top. You can also ee all the equipment we were carrying. That vest has many pockets and it is packed with lenses and other equipment. You can see Phyllis' tripod tucked in her vest.

This was the view we saw when we reached the very top and looked out.

From the top, you can see where we started. We then started walking around on top of the mesa, seeing the view from different areas, and seeing the valley below us and the mountains in the distance. In the upper right hand corner you can see a little bit of the roads we drove to reach here.

The actual top looks like any other area of the desert in Sedona. Trees and other plants are growing out of the red rock.

 

   In the background you can see another mesa, an even taller one.

 

It amazes me that there is so much growth on the top of this giant rock mountain.

We spent about an hour walking around enjoying the view, solitude and the wonderful clean air, always being aware of where we were and the danger that not being careful could bring! You must be very careful in an environment like this. No matter how beautiful it is, you cannot be lulled into a false sense of security. You could easily fall to your death.

We decided to start our trek back down the mesa before it became late morning, remember this is Sedona, Arizona in July, the air heats up pretty fast.

We took a last look around at nature's majesty, soaking in all the beauty. Truth be told, we were feeling pretty good about ourselves. We had climbed this mesa as a challenge and we made it. Just before we started our climb down, I looked and saw where our car was parked. That white SUV is our rental!

Again, I asked myself those same three questions????????

PHOTOGRAPHING RED ROCK COUNTRY: SEDONA, ARIZONA

Don't forget to click on the images for a larger view
If you enjoy seeing this post please Stumble it in the box to your left. Thank You


As followers of our blog know, I really love Arizona. I had lived there for most of the 1970s and visited many times since I moved. One of my absolute favorite spots in Arizona is Sedona. Located in Arizona's high desert below the southwestern rim of the Colorado Plateau, this wonderful city is blessed with great weather all year, lots of sunshine and great, clean mountain air. It sits at the mouth of the beautiful Oak Creek Canyon, a wonderfully unique place. It has massive red-rock formations, as well as the cool, readily running creek. Large green trees dot the landscape creating a beautiful multicolored landscape. 

It was named Sedona by Theodore Carl Schnebly after he and his family moved into the area in 1900 from Missouri. The few families living there convinced him to establish a post office in his large home, which had already become the community's hotel. The story gets a little murky here, some saying he wanted to name it Schnebly Station others saying Red Rock Crossing. It really doesn't matter because the government told him the names were too long and following a suggestion from his brother, he named it after his wife, Sedan. We can only be happy his wife was not called Gertrude!! It was incorporated in 1988. 

I had moved to Arizona in 1976 and visited it for the first time that same year. I immediately fell in love with it and visited from my home in Phoenix, many times in the upcoming years. It has changed much over the years and in my opinion, not for the better, unfortunately.

It now attracts over four million tourists a year from around the world.  In 2011, eleven thousand people live here within the city's total area of 18.6 square miles. All the vast empty desert is now filled with houses, hotels, restaurants and shops that dot the landscape. I understand that it is progress but as a photographer, it is sad to see. I miss the days when I could see for miles with very, very few homes in my view.

One of my favorite spots in the Sedona area is RED ROCK CROSSING. It has become a symbol of the American Southwest and is the most photographed spot in Arizona. It has been featured in more than sixty classic Hollywood Films. It is just outside of Sedona on Red Rock Loop Road. 

When you drive through the gate (there is a small fee for the park), you have plenty of room to park your car and make use of some picnic tables. The last time we visited a few years ago, things had changed. You cannot see the creek anymore from the parking lot as trees and shrubs have been allowed to grow unattended. This is probably due to fundings being cut!

We had to walk along a path for awhile and finally found an area where not only we could reach the water but see the main attraction, Cathedral Rock!!

It is a truly beautiful natural structure to see. I have viewed it hundreds of time over the years and I still find it a fascinating sight. 

Having photographed it so many times, I now try and find different ways of photographing it, including standing in the creek, as I did  taking the two images above. 

Earlier that morning, we were on the other side of Sedona making some images in the desert. I could see the back of Cathedral Rock in the distance. I made this image knowing we would be going there later in the day. Cathedral is in the best light after 5PM and we would be there to see it.

This time, we thought we would try making images off Red Rock Loop, the road leading into the park. There are some cutouts where you can park, picnic and see Cathedral Rock in the distance. We pulled into one about halfway to Cathedral. We parked and I took my Nikon D300, my Nikon 70-200 mm VR lens and my tripod. I headed over to find a spot where I could see a view that interested me.

As I have written before, I love dramatic skies and this sky was all that!!! I could take a closer image with the zoom out to 200 but I wanted to see the entire valley. I have taken many closeup views from down at the creek and was looking for something different. I love the images from below, like this one, but felt like I had been there and done that!! I needed to kick my creative cape; make it work a little harder. Sometimes the best way to do that is to take a familiar scene and find a different angle.

        As the clouds came in, shadows would be cast in different 
     locations changing the look in each image I took.

   Then I saw something exciting, a rain cloud and rain falling from 
   it: not only falling from it but right on Cathedral Rock!!

  Luckily we were far enough away that the rain was not touching  
  us. I kept shooting as the cloud formation and the light kept 
  changing. You could now see rain falling across the valley from   
  left to right.

Then I noticed how the clouds had changed and become really dramatic, so much so that I changed my composition to include more of the sky. This cloud was one of the most dramatic and  amazing clouds I had ever seen and it still is to this day. It's really a wondrous sight to witness.

On this day, I was metering in manual and using my built in spot meter. I metered off the grey in the clouds and then adjusted as I needed. 

To this day, I am still enthralled when I look at these images. They make me appreciate nature even more. I am just in awe of nature's majesty. I still believe that one of the places to witness that majesty is Sedona, Arizona. If you ever get a chance, please do not just drive through it. Stop, stay a few days, be out early in the morning and late afternoon. You will see amazing structures, colors and if you're lucky, a rain shower. Oh yes, don't forget your camera!!! 

HOW I PHOTOGRAPH SILHOUETTES

A few weeks ago I posted some images that were silhouettes. I received some inquiries on how I shot them.  In this post I will attempt to explain what my process is. I am not saying this is the only way or even the best way. It is just the way I find that works the best for me, which means the easiest way.

I really enjoy making silhouettes. I think they are a wonderful way to convey drama, mystery and mood in an image. I also like them because it includes the viewer in the creative process. The viewer does not see a clear image and must use some of his/her imagination to add to the storyline. 

Now the easiest way to explain a silhouette is that you place your main subject (the part that you want to be in black) in front of some source of light. You then force your camera to expose for the brightest part of your picture, the background. When you do this, you are actually underexposing your subject. If you photograph a lot, you might have made some silhouettes when you didn't want them.  

Has your subject ever been underexposed when you were trying to take a portrait, so much so that they are all in black? You made a silhouette. You had no idea you were, you didn't want to, but you did!!  Basically what you want to do is fool your camera into thinking that it's the brightest part of the scene that you're really interested in. Now I'll show you how to make those images anytime you want. 

There are some key points that I will list:

1) Choose a strong subject - Almost anything can be made into a silhouette but some are better than others. Pick something with a recognizable shape that will be interesting enough in two dimensional form, to hold the interest of the viewer. Your silhouette will not have the advantage of bright colors and textures to to make them appealing, so the shape needs to be clear.

2) Turn off your flash -This may seem pretty simple. You're taking a silhouette, so of course so you're thinking, "I'm not going to use my flash". If you're camera is a simple automatic point and shoot and you do not manually shut off the flash, your camera will probably fire your flash, so shut off the flash.

3) Find a light source - Basically you want to light the background and not your subject. You can accomplish this different ways. One way is to manually light your background with some sort of light, a flash, a street light, a lamp or even a TV will provide the light. Not all these choices will work well for the total image but it technically will work. 

One of my favorite ways is to use natural light. A very bright sky will work. I like to place the subject or subjects in shade and compose with just the sky as a background. In this image it was a bride and groom outside at noon. Wedding photographers do not love photographing weddings in the noon light. It can be a real challenge and especially if the ceremony is outside under the bright sun. This wedding was exactly like that except the ceremony was held in the woods under a canopy of tall trees. As the couple was walking back to the reception area, I had them stop and face each other.  I exposed for the really bright sky, composed the image I wanted and took a few shots. I thought this one worked out well and even more important so did the couple.

 

You can also put the flash behind the couple. This requires a way to fire your flash off camera and something or someone to hold the flash in place. In this case Phyllis is on her knees 'getting small' as I take the image.

One of my favorite ways to use the light is either at sunrise or sunset. You make the silhouette with the added benefit of getting some colors in the background.

One night recently we were at a restaurant near our house. It was in a marina and besides great food, seeing the boats coming and going and the sunsets, really makes for a great experience. After we ate we went down the a boardwalk right on the water and sat down on a bench while listening to the band. The sunset was pretty nice.

People kept walking back and forth in front of us and I thought I might try and take a few silhouettes to use in a post.

4) Make your shapes distinct and uncluttered - In other words, if you have two or more people in the image keep as many as possible separated from each other. If not, you will have one big black unrecognizable mass in your image. If you're shooting people's faces, try and keep them in profile other than full face. That way you will be able to see the shapes of their face ie; noses, chins, eyes. If you photograph straight on, you will be lucky to see the shapes of the heads. 

The gentlemen noticed that I was taking pictures of people walking by and decided he would get his close up!!! He leaned in real close and naturally I took the picture. He laughed, stood up and with drink in hand and headed back to his boat.

These are some pretty simple steps. The rest is all about exposing, which program to use and focusing. All these images were shot with my nikon 17-55 zoom. Settings were F3.5, ISO of 1250 and speed was from 200th down to 20th of a second. Speed was changing as the sun went down.  

Are those the only settings that would work? No, not at all. It is just the settings I used. The people I was photographing were walking by me in low light. I needed as much speed as I could get, thus the F3.5 and the ISO of 1250. By using a focal lens of 20mm, I hoped I could get enough light to capture sharp images. 

Keep in mind that I was not setting up these shots. They were all candids, other than the one gentlemen who realized what I was doing. I had a setting sun and very little time to take the shots, roughly 10-12 minutes. I set my camera using the built in spot meter, focusing on the brightest part of the sky and getting my reading in aperture priority. 

Then I changed to manual mode. I took a few test images, looked in my LCD screen and when I found the setting that worked, I started shooting. I focused on one person in each shot. I could have prefocused on a particular spot but I could not guarantee that all my images would be made on one particular spot or area. I did not have the time to focus manually since I was shooting candids. I was taking the images as they came near me but depending on the amount of people in the shot and how fast they were walking, my angle changed and I was working very quickly. I never left my seat. I was trying for the candids and not letting people know I was shooting. 

This image shows two ladies taking home doggy bags. Even though they were not in profile, I like that you can see the shape of the woman in the forefront's hair, her cheekbone and enough of her shape to know she was a woman.

  
When these three people came walking by, you can see the first man and woman's profile quite distinctly. As I look at their faces, I can almost read emotions. My imagination can add a storyline quite easily. Can yours?

Here, there was not as much separation but I think there is enough to see that it is two men and a lady.

  
This image shows a lone man walking toward the restaurant. It's a pretty good profile plus I like how his hand can be seen against the brighter sunset reflecting in the water.

  
The light was getting real low and these two men walked by obviously not together. You can see that it was getting harder to freeze at this point. I was at a 50th of a second and they were walking fast. I knew at this point I was almost done.

 

But then I looked to my left and saw this man just standing still, looking out at the setting sun and boats, with a drink in his hand. I felt his emotions as I looked at him. It was a serene scene of a man at peace with the night. At least that is what I saw. What you see and what is the truth might all be different. That's the fun part of candids and silhouettes. 

This was taken at a 20th of a second. But he wasn't moving, so I could capture a sharp image as long as I held camera shake to a minimum. I knew that at this low setting, the blue sky would become saturated and I was hoping to pick up some of the lights on the boats. I think it worked out pretty well. I was really happy with this one.

As we were getting ready to leave, I saw two and then three ladies to my right. It's a little more cluttered then I would have liked but I saw a storyline happening.

                     First, the two ladies were speaking.

    Then a third came into view with a camera phone and took their   
   picture. You can see the light from the camera's LCD screen.

 
As the ladies were looking at the image, a gentlemen walked by and did what you would think a guy would do. As he walked by these three attractive ladies, he stopped and gave an appreciative glance in their direction before moving on.

 

At this point, we decided it was time for us to move on as well. As I was walking down the boardwalk to the parking lot, I took this one last image. It's not as sharp as I would want. I was hand holding at a 4th of a second. At that slow speed, it looks much brighter than it was. This is caused by the slower shutter speed allowing more light on the photo card.

Remember, just because the sun is going down does not mean you cannot make dramatic, imaginative images. It might take a little practice but I think it can be worth it. I hope you think so, too!!!