I changed my mind, I am going to write about my trip in a word document. I feel like I have more freedom on there because no one will read it. but me!

Dublin, Ireland

I would like to write about my explorations while I am in Ireland for the next 4 months and I thought writing in this blog would be a good idea. So I left NJ at 7pm at arrived in Dublin around 7am. I watched 'The social network' 'He's just not that into you' and some other love movie. I couldn't sleep at all, so I essentially stayed up all night. Isobel and Kate McKenna picked me up at the airport. We drove to a local mall and met Dave for tea at starbucks. We ended up staying for 2 hours. I was already getting an idea of the laid back atmosphere people have in Ireland. Then we drove to Izzy's parent's house in Bray. We hung out there for a bit and then drove to lunch back at the mall where Mick met us. He said I am able to have a room at the boarding school and it will be ready the next day. I was very happy about that. I watched David train at practice that night. It was very intense and I was very tired. I also coached at the KH school in the afternoon for 2 hours. I really liked it. The GKs are very good with the fundamentals but they could use a lot of refining. I moved into my room the next day. I went to work with Izzy and Jean at a primary school during the day. They run the PE period by coaching fh. They actually get paid 27 euro an hour which is amazing bc the work is fun. After the first class was done in 45min we had a tea break. Lunch was a few sessions later. We were there from around 10-2:30. Then we left right away to move into the school. I am living in a room that is like a college dorm single room. Just a bed, chair and dresser. I don't need anything else. In the hallway there are 4 boys from Australia living in the hall as well. They are gap students. That means that they travel when they finish high school before starting college. They are here for a long time. One is here until December. Another plays field hockey on a club around. And he gets paid for it! At the end of the hall there is a common room with couches and a tv. It should be a nice place to live.

Walter Iooss- SPORTS PHOTOGRAPHY

"I've always felt the moment. People call me lucky, and luck is a wonderful attribute. But it's more - it's a sense somehow. It's inexplicable, it happens. It's a feeling and you just move into that direction. Someone once said that wherever I am is the perfect picture. I didn't like the way it sounded but I believe that. It's not that I'm positive of it deep down inside, it's that I have to believe it. When you make that decision - 'This is the place to go' - you've got to live with it. There's no alternative." - Walter Iooss

Sports photographer for Sports Illustrated: http://www.walteriooss.com/
He shoots action and portraits of athletes. I think he does really strong portrait work because there is emotion in the athletes. For the portraits that are shot in the studio I feel like the lighting is dramatic, one directional, and high key because it is not flat. When I used the soft box, I didn't get the results I was looking for because the box made everything even in tonality, and I wanted contrast. Some of his shots are close up, others are action from further away. I like the shot of Kevin Garrett where he is leaning on the basketball because of the round back lighting that exaggerates his form. It looks like there was a light coming from behind and above the camera. For his portraits that were shot on the court, he tends to shoot literally from the ground looking up at the athlete. I think he did this to really show the basketball players' height and impressiveness. For the football portraits shot on the field he emphasizes the environment. The stadium and field are just as important as the athlete who is in the image. I like some of his images of the athlete's hands. They are sort of like portraits, and still lives at the same time. Their hands are describing themselves and their pain for their sport. I think these shots hold just as much emotion as a portrait with their face in them. For golf shots with Tiger Woods, I like his point of view; as if he is the golf ball. I think that the sky is used to make the shots more dramatic and interesting. For the soccer shots, the one of Pelle I find very intimate and dramatic at the same time. It's like there is a spotlight on his face and the ball, and not everything has to be in the spotlight, shadows are important. He divided his portfolio into sections: swimsuit 2010, new 60s finds, recent work, baseball, basketball, Cuba sports, diaries, football, golf, icons, Jordon, musicians, Olympic sports, soccer, swimsuit and glamor, surfing, children sports, and travel. I like his travel section at the end because all of the other shots are of people and I find the images in this section very good as well and it shows he can shoot different subjects.

Martin Waugh's Liquid Drops (A4 proposal)

http://www.liquidsculpture.com/index.htm

Liquid Sculpture images are fluids in motion, frozen in time by a flash of light. They are droplets witnessed in mid-splash.

"I orchestrate these sculptures by accurately aiming the drops and releasing them with precise timing. As nature takes its course, I photograph the unfolding forms using a digital camera and electronic flash. I instigate the myriad of shapes by varying the drops' trajectories and manipulating their physical properties. Color, viscosity, and surface tension are controlled with dye, glycerin, and soap. Fluids in motion fascinate my senses. I feel their smooth and effortless curves: structures reflecting a perfect balance of dynamic forces. They tickle some faint physical memory, like a scent evoking a forgotten mix of feelings."

When I think about photographing water, I always think about the outdoors. I read this article in Rangefinder magazine a while ago and learned about Martin Waugh's water droplet photography. What he does is he sets up his studio and high speed flashes and stops the droplets in motion. On his website, I looked at all of the different types of droplets. He manipulated the colors a lot to get interesting and more beautiful results. Maybe even more than the droplets, I like the ripple effect they give off.
For my A4 in lighting techniques I want to try a process where I photograph water in the studio. I plan on setting up a table, bringing in some bowls, and different color backdrops. Then I think it will take me a really long time to get it right. I will fire the flash after a drop is released, and maybe I'll get one good one out of 100. I think it would be cool to put colored filters on the strobes and/or my lens. Then after I get the hang of it, I can use food dye in the water and see how that affects the droplets. I know that mine won't be as good as Martin's, but I like his concepts and ideas. I'd like to experiment on my own and see what path this assignment takes me on.

Lighting Techniques Propsal Assignment 3

Assignment 3- Instillation utilizing projection of imagery or light.
I really like the whole sports idea for photography so I am going to roll with it. The location I have decided on is the field hockey locker room. During our season, we have a different poster for each game up on white brick wall. They include pictures, opponents, quotes, and different blurbs from years past games. After each competition, we write the final score on the poster. After the season was over, our whole wall was totally crammed with these posters and it was a way to look back and reflect on our games. It brings back memories because I remember seeing the posters before each game, and writing on them after each one. We took all the posters down now, because we are in a new season now, spring; but I still think about them when I look at the blank wall, and remember our triumphs and struggles and can visualize the posters that used to be there.
I am going to project images onto this wall. They aren’t really there because they are being projected, but they would make me think of the memory of having them there. I need help deciding what exactly to project. I have a couple different ideas. First, I could use the portraits of the athletes from assignment 2. What I would do is shoot several different players from my team and project their portrait on the wall; because each and every one of us is responsible for the outcome on the wall. I could also incorporate the titles of the opponents we versed, and the final score somehow. On the other hand, I could use the opponents from our upcoming season to show that the wall is blank now, but in August of this year, it will be filled up again with brand new posters and a brand new season, with all new outcomes. I really like the concept I have come up with, and how it relates to me personally, but I don’t have any real solid ideas of imagery to project. The location would be perfect because it’s in the MAC on campus, and I will get permission from my coach to have the class come in the locker room.

Lighting Techniques Proposal

Assignment 2:
must use lights on location, use strobe settings, photograph a person, and direct shoot.
I have two ideas for this assignment. I would like to do both anyway, but for the proposal, maybe you can tell me which one makes the most sense with the assignment. At first, I thought I would do an athlete portrait sitting on location of their respective sport field. My two ideas that I would be able to do without too much trouble are field hockey and baseball players. I will take a travel light out to the field and shoot an on location portrait of the athlete. I will take in to account their location on the field (circle, end line, goal cage, pitcher’s mound, dugout, bench, etc), and their outfits (practice clothes, uniform, winter or summer outfit workout clothes, hat, gloves, shin guards, etc). I would bring out the lights for dramatic lighting, and shoot probably earlier in the morning or at dusk for extra side lighting. For field hockey, I could do a series with a group of players on the baseline, ready to sprint before the whistle blows. This would make sense to shoot in the early morning as the sun comes up because that is when we usually have running tests. I could also shoot more still portraits that show the ‘inner athlete’. I would try to capture emotion in the athlete’s stance, and facial expression. Ideas for the baseball player would include dugout single athlete shot and a bat over the player’s shoulders to show defeat. I would like to change up the camera angle. I think shooting closer to the ground would be good if I am trying to make the player look intimidating and tough.
I still would like to try this, but I think a more experimental and interesting project idea would be to try a time exposure and freeze action with the strobe. I am pulling inspiration from Harold Edgerton where he photographed tennis, baseball, football, golf, and lacrosse players. What I see happening is taking 2 travel lights to the field hockey field at night, and capturing fast action by firing the strobe. I will have a team mate come out and take shots and lifts and I will set up the lights and have my camera on a tripod. At first I will have to have the model light on so I can make sure that the action will be inside the frame. Then, I’ll turn the model light off, put the shutter speed on 10 seconds, press the shutter, say go, fire the first strobe, then the second, and if they power up quickly, I will fire them again.
This is just the general idea that I have; I think that it will turn into something different once I am out there experimenting. Of course I won’t be able to take as many repetitions of the strobe as Edgerton, but if I can get the athlete to slow their action while maintaining form, I will do that and then fire the strobes more than once. I will have to wait to start this assignment because I can’t plug in the strobes at the field.

Portfolio Option 1 for Black and White Photography

For my portfolio long term project for this class I am going to continue along with the same theme as Sequence as a Story. However, I am going to go much more in-depth with my shooting, and focus on water to the fullest. I am pulling inspiration and ideas from these three artists: Clark Little, Harold Edgerton, and William Neill. I would like to use my camera as a way to capture images that we don’t normally see with our naked eye.
First, time exposures offer endless opportunities to get interesting and cool results. I am interested in shooting time exposures of moving water as it glides over rocks and sand. Ocean, lakes, rivers, bays, puddles, rain, clouds, fog and ice are all variations of water I would like to explore. Because this is a semester long project, I am able to show all of these different stages of water, from ice to warmer water. I like William Neill’s images of moving water. They give off a ghostly feel which I would like to imitate.
Clark Little shoots most of his images from in the ocean. That concept interreges me, and I would like to try something similar. This isn’t going to happen in February because the ocean temperature is around 36. In April, temperatures should reach a high of 50, so I will attempt this later on in the semester. I understand that he shoots in Hawaii where the water is beautiful and clear and colorful; this is why I won’t be doing underwater shooting, but shooting above the surface. I will try to go out with my wide angle lens. I will use like five of the best plastic bags I can find, and cut out around the lens opening and duct tape.
Finally, I will use Harold Edgerton as inspiration because I want to try to ‘stop the action’ of water. I understand that he used fast strobes in his work the pause action. First, I will try to just take images using a faster speed film and as fast of a shutter speed as the light will allow. After that, maybe I will try to bring some flashes into the images to freeze the frame.
All of my concepts are involving the interaction of light and water. How does the lighting situation change the look of water? How does the shutter speed change the look of the image of water? How does the result change with shooting position change from in water to out of water? These are questions I would like to look further into and answer using photographs. After I have taken film shots, I think it would be fun and beneficial to scan them and manipulate them digitally. I am using these three photographers as inspiration to develop images similar to their; however, I want these starting points to branch off and grow into my own ideas and impressions of light.

Clark Little

I first came in contact with Clark Little's work in Sierra Magazine. He says:
"I enjoy the power and beauty of the thick bombs that roll through. Now I can capture some of those heavy moments without getting slammed. Well, most of the time." His url is: http://www.clarklittlephotography.com/

I absolutely love his work. I think its stunning in every way. I think it would be great if I could do similar work, but NJ water is a lot different looking than Hawaii. He had to 'suffer' sometimes for his shots. I don't know if that makes them any more valuable to him or others, but I think it makes them more unique because a lot less people would be willing to gets shots like these, which is probably why they are so special and unique.

Lighting Techniques: Harold Edgerton

http://edgerton-digital-collections.org/galleries/iconic-----
this is where all the images I talk about are coming from.
"While electric lights were used with some success as early as the mid 1900's it was with the Harold Edgerton's 1930's invention of "Stroboscopic" photography that controlling light and time became a photographers greatest tool." I am totally intrigued by his work with strobes and motion in the studio. His athletic portfolio of work is stunning especially considering the time period. The strobe fired rapidly to capture the people's movement. He captures things that we can't see normally at all. He invented to strobhttp://edgerton-digital-collections.org/galleries/iconic/athleticse light and combined science and photography. I like the tennis players because it shows the motion of the racket and the ball. Another kind of actin photography he did was Stop-action. In the photo of a man hitting a softball, he shows how when a batter hits a softball, the bat bends and the ball caves in around the bat. This athlete had an additional challenge. The photo was taken in a darkened room, with the sound of the ball hitting the bat triggering the flash.The golf swing is amazing also because it shows the entire swing of the club and the rotation of the athlete.

Every image I go to I am constantly saying wow! Because these are stop motions that we can't see with the naked eye. I like the diver because it shows each change in direction he makes and shows his athletic ability. His most famous images include the bullet going through the apple. I like the one where the apple is being split, and then in the next image, the apple is exploding. He freezes the motion to show us something we have never seen. I keep saying this, but I think it's main reason for his work. I am also interested in his water droplet series. It isn't just 1 photo, it is a series of images that create motion; each one has been frozen in time. The playing cards!!!! wow, this is amazing! the cards appear to be flying through the air from one hand to the other! I def. want to try to recreate some of his works. It can be called copying, but I want to see how he does it!

Matt Sartain

http://www.mattsartain.com/
Matt is a digital photographer who also does a lot of photo manipulation to create surreal images. He is only 25 years old. I really like his images because he makes them look real, even when they seem impossible. For example, "The Librarian" shows a man walking around with a huge stack of books, way taller than could ever really be held up by a person; however, the way he positions them looks as if they are being balanced by this guy, and as if they could topple over at any point in time. "The Paper Airplane" reminds me of Maggie Taylor's work, but it looks real. It looks like this scene could actually be happening, and yet looking at it, I know it is many photographs stitched together. The majority of his images are backlit, which makes me wonder if he uses similar sky photos for a lot of different images. "The Balloon Ride" looks very surreal as if it should be an illustration for a movie or kid story book. A man dressed in costume with a mask on is talking to two boys who seem interested about going for a ride on the hot air balloon. I think the shadows are very well done. They are long on the ground, showing the lateness in the day, soon to be nightfall, and they are crisp, meaning it is not a cloudy night. "The Shipwreck" is kind of funny, but sad at the same time. The man looks exhausted as he paddles away from the sinking ship, but he is paddling in a little gun powder barrel that barely fits him. I like to see a successful photographer who is young and not a wedding photographer. He is using his imagination and photoshop skills to develop and piece together scenes that I've never seen before. I look forward to seeing more work by him, and trying some of his techniques on my own.

Start of Lighting Techniques and Black ad White Photography Blog

I am excited about taking these two very different courses. I haven't worked with film since freshman year here, so it's been a while, and I have never used the darkroom at Monmouth. I have a couple lenses for my film camera that I want to experiment with for some projects. For the 2 projects I can develop on my own I want to do some new techniques that have to do with time exposures. Everyday I walk past the flag pole on the great lawn and see the flag waving. I wonder if I took a time exposure at night for 10 seconds what it would look like. I think they are fun experiments that I could maybe get cool looking results with. Also night photography could look really good with grainy black and white film. I am nervous but excited about shooting film again.
For the Lighting class, I want to learn about different ways to light people for portraits. I did 1 photo shoot over the summer with 3 people, but I was just playing around and trying new things. I learned a lot from just shooting for that one session. I did some things well, and other things I should have changed. I want to learn where to position people to make them look the best and show their personality. I want to know how to go about positioning a larger group of people who want their portraits taken. Just having different heights can create an obstacle to fix. Then placing one person in front of another means you have to think about focusing differently. I want to learn about shooting food, and making it look good, and what type of lighting is best. I will probably try some products shooting. I have done 1 shoot on peanuts and wine. It would be good to try some more for my portfolio. I want to experiment with the strobes and model lights. If the room is all black, and the shutter is open, when the strobe is fired, a solid image of a figure can be made. Then, the figure can move and another strobe can be fired, making the same person appear twice in the same image. On the other hand, just using the model or hot lights, in a low lighting situation, the person can move and jump around and the camera will capture this motion that we can't even see with our naked eye.

Conclusion of Sequence As a Story Blog

I really gained a lot from writing this blog and researching photographers that interest me. I am really drawn to nature, wildlife, landscape, pattern, water, and time-exposure photography. I think that I got a lot of inspiration for my own work by looking at the artists I have written about here. My goals are to try to experiment a lot with time-exposure photography on different types of water. It is so easy to get stuck in the automatic mode of a camera, and I forget sometimes to change it up and shooting on manual.
For my projects,
I enjoyed the documentary the most. I really am happy with the topic I chose and I had fun going out exploring, and shooting. I hope that my images are beautiful, striking, intriguing, concerning, and action provoking. I want to get across the message that the environment is a beautiful thing and we need to protect it. And right now, we need to do a better job of it.
I am happy we got to work in groups this semester. I think that group thinking is good for brainstorming and team work. I like working and collaborating with classmates and seeing what their ideas are, and making things happen.
For my blog,
I want to travel to all of these National Parks and photograph. But it makes me wonder if I would be able to get anything relatively close to what these photographers have captured. I mean, you can't get better than that! I think that photographers have to find their own style because in landscape photography, it can be easy to duplicate works.

My ultimate goal in the future: I am going to China after I graduate college. I am going to photograph giant pandas in the wild. It is really difficult to do though.Firstly because they are extremely endangered animals. An estimated 1,600 live in the wild. I could just photograph them at the reserves, which I probably will end up doing for a bit, but I want to go hiking in the mountains and really capture and observe them in their natural habitat. This has been a dream of my since I was a little kid. Before, I just wanted to go and see them in the wild, but now I want to photograph them. I think this is really unique. There are a large amount of photos out there os pandas int he nature reserves, but very very few of pandas in the wild. I have been talking to a zoologist who is trying to find wild pandas and put radio collars on them to study their behavior and natural living. She has been going for 5 years and has been unsuccessful in finding one in the wild. This is not promising for me, but I will not be discouraged. I want to purchase more professional camera equipment including a longer telephoto lens and a dslr sensor camera. I am staying with canon forever. I will also need a tripod, a mac, a lot of memory cards, and a really good camera bag. I know it will be expensive to do. I am paying my own way and I am proud of it. There is still a lot of research to be done for my trip, and maybe the first part is researching wildlife photographers so I can work on my own projects.
I am so excited to see where this interest of mine takes me. I don't want money to hold me back. It would be amazing to have the opportunity to travel around the world. I am making a list of locations and parks that interest me, and it is getting really long already.

Panoramic Mind: Masumi Hayashi

Her work is a combination of images into 1. A panorama where the viewer can see all of the images that were combined. I am interested in panoramic photography work, bu t in mine, I usually take the images I want and combine them in photoshop to make 1 cohesive print. I don't want the viewer to see the images that were stitched together at all, just the overall effect.

Here is what this artist was going for in her very different approach to panoramic photography:

Masumi Hayashi's panoramic photo collages explore the incongruity between appearance and reality in the American experience. She does this by creating photographs of contested sites: abandoned prisons, post-industrial landscapes, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund Sites, and the remains of American concentration camps. Yet, the resulting panoramic photo collages exhibit tremendous beauty, laced with both precise detail and abstraction. Without overt or critical commentary, they explore both the surface and the reality behind such places, whether they be panoramic landscapes or haunting interiors.

A key characteristic of Hayashi's work is the fact that her photo collages refrain from overt commentary. She creates work of tremendous beauty and simplicity, even though the landscapes she selects are primarily sites of conflict and contestation. Her work does not preach or condemn. Rather, it entices the viewer to learn and question through attraction to the physical, and often haunting, beauty of a site-whether it be the inherent beauty of the landscape or that which results from the transformations of her artmaking.

To create her panoramic photo collages, Hayashi's process is both systematic and open to change. She begins at the horizon line, shooting approximately two dozen photographs in a horizontal circular rotation until she ends up where she began. She then angles upwards, then downwards, continuing until she has fully captured the landscape around her. After she returns to the studio, she collaborates with a printer to produce the component photographs and begins the final phase of assembling the collages. Rather than submit to a rigid framework, Hayashi plays with the discrete images to determine what might make-first and foremost-a convincing work of art. The resulting photo collages range from a 100 degree to 540 degree rotation and include as many as 140 individual photographs or as few as five.

Hayashi's use of multiple images underscores the insufficiency of a single photograph to capture complex experiences and realities. Viewers must simultaneously process the individual component parts as they try to make sense of the vertiginous perspectives produced by the circular rotation. This is especially the case in Hayashi's photographs of interior spaces, where the camera distorts what the eye and brain naturally process.

Mark Adamus

Marc Adamus is a landscape photographer based in Corvallis, Oregon. The visual drama and artistry of his photographs are born of a keen eye for the many moods of Nature and a life-long passion for the wilderness. This passion shines throughout Marc’s work and has attracted a wide audience around the world.

His talent for rare captures of amazing light and fleeting atmosphere imbue his portfolio with a sense of the epic, majestic and the bold. His success derives from patient single-minded pursuit of all the unique moments that generate the magic and energy of the wilderness, often spending months immersing himself in the landscape he shoots despite the rigors of season and weather.

Marc’s photographs have been published extensively worldwide in a large variety of media ranging from calendars, books, advertising and the publications of National Geographic, Outdoor Photographer, Popular Photography and many more. Marc has been acclaimed as one of the most talented landscape artists of his generation.

"Mood and emotion are the primary elements I seek to capture in all of my work, and for me, these are the images that evoke that emotional response the strongest."

My Favorite images:::
1) "Great Beyond" Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. WOW! This creates such a mood of mystery and beauty. The starry sky is stunning and the waterfall coming from the background into the front in a good trail for the eye. He says he combined 2 exposures for this which I would guess. He needs 1 for the night sky and another for the landscape at twilight. The exposure used for the sky took in more than 5 times as much light as is seen by the naked eye, using an extremely high ISO, a big aperture of f2.8 and keeping the shutter opening for 45 seconds.
2) "Ethereal" Central Oregon Coast. Dramatic twilight skies and a long exposure create the surreal, otherworldly mood. I like the ghostly water on the rocks again.
3) "Magic Mountain," Mount Rainier National Park. Taken as the moon was setting. I like this particularly because the clouds are clear and divide the mountain. It looks like the mountain is rising over the cloud horizon.
4) "The Storm Wall" Glacier National Park, Montana. Again, a longer exposure created the movement of the water and waves. The black and white gives the feeling of being cold and stormy in this image.

William Neill

Awesome photograph for landscapes, water, light and nature. I am a fan!

Portfolio: http://www.williamneill.com/portfolios/landscapes-of-the-spirit/index.html Top picks:
Landscapes of the Spirit:
1)Dawn, Lake Louise, Banff National Park, Canada. Foreground shows rocks under the water, middle ground is all blurred blue water, background is 2 mountains meeting with fog in between.
2) Twilight Surf, Big Sur Coast, California. Time exposure on moving water creates a foggy blur on top of the rocks that I like.
3) Bridal Weil Falls, Eldorado County, California. Using a medium shutter speed, probably 1/25th of a second he captures the water falling on the rocks. There is focus there, but also a blur at the same time showing motion. I find this interesting.
4) Rocks formations and surf at twilight- again, he uses a time exposure to create a ghost effect of the moving water on the rocks.

Impressions of Light:
1) Giant Seqoias, Maripose Grove, Yosemite National Park. I think he uses a camera shake to create this effect. The trees are obviously stationary, so he must have had a 1 second exposure and tilted the lens up or down slightly while the shutter was open. This creates a really interesting effect. It looks very painterly.
2) Carp, Bronx Zoo, wow, at first, I had no idea what this was until looking at the title, and now I see it. He took a time exposure of the fish while they are swimming under water. I love the effect.
3) Dawn, Mono Lake, California: This would be a boring image without the time exposure. There is no focal point, just ground and sky. But the longer exposure creates a Gaussian blur and painterly effect that I like.
I find this series very interesting. I love the effects of time exposure of light on different objects and scenes. He used close ups, middle ground, moving objects, and landscapes.

Meditations in Monochrome
These remind me of Ansel Adam in terms of contrast, light and shadow. He does some very stunning landscapes in black and white, and also patterns and repetition subjects.

"The reason I photograph is to experience the beauty of Nature, of wild places. I explore the essential elements of rock and tree, of cloud and rushing water to discover the magic and mystery of the landscape. My search for beauty is romantic and idealistic. It is the spirit of the land I seek-be it in a small piece of urban wildness or in vast wilderness. Rachel Carson, in her book The Sense of Wonder, writes, "Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts."

Paul Nicklen Photography

He photographs Leopard seals, polar bears, narwhals, aurora borealis, walruses, birds, sea lions in the arctic for National Geographic.

He got started in 1994, while struggling to make money as a young photographer, Nicklen wrote a proposal to the Nunavut territorial government asking for funding to begin a book project documenting wildlife in the arctic and Antarctica. The government cut him a check for $8,000.

I like how he captures action scenes. For example the image of the leopard seal reaching for a bit on the penguin and almost snapping his jaws is so thrilling. His favorite places to work are places where he knows that he can protect through strong photography. He likes to work in remote places with extreme environments such as the high arctic. Such places get very little coverage and their species need protection as much as any other.

"My goal is to bridge the gap between scientific research and the public by producing stories for magazines such as National Geographic. Since 1994, I have been fortunate to see my work published in hundreds of magazines around the world. In the last few years, I have published seven stories in National Geographic Magazine: "Atlantic Salmon," July 2003, "Northern Exposure," January 2004, "Phoenix Islands," February 2004, “Where Currents Collide,” August 2006, “Deadly Beauty: Leopard Seals,” November 2006, “Life at the Edge,” June 2007, “Narwhals,” August 2007. Other stories are in the works and I will be on assignment for National Geographic for much of the next two years"

I like his use of reflections on water and snow. "Ice Chunks at floe edge" the curved lens makes the illusion of the surface of earth and the sun rising over the horizon.

He is an adventurer photographer. Online it says he has ridden on the the back of a bowhead whale. He has had a near-disastrous attack by a bull elephant seal.

To approach animals in their most natural, native settings, he has to understand they mysteries of their behavior. He takes careful preparations he can show the animal in its best light, demonstrating its beauty, strength, and intelligence. I think photographing the polar bears is helping to show people the effects of global warming and what we are doing to the animals in the arctic. I like the dramatic use of lighting in the early or late parts of the day. He also uses reflections to make the image more interesting.

Frans Lanting

Frans Lanting:
He photographs birds, places, mammals, people, the environment, fish, frogs, and nature. I like his use of repetition, pattern, color, light and shadow to compose images. I looked at his images of birds and tried to do similar techniques with my seagull shots. He likes to capture their eyes to draw you into the photograph. I also looked at the environmental pictures to get new ideas for my documentary project. His portfolio "larger than life" is very interesting to me. He has elephants, antelope, penguins, polar bears, rivers, lions, impalas, cougars, dolphins and birds. He usually has a repeated form with no real focal point, or he has 1 strong focal point with a very pretty background.
He was born in Rotterdam, Holland. His photographs are regularly published in National Geographic, for which he is a photographer-in-residence. He is also featured in Outdoor-photographer, Audubon, and Life.

"I don’t like to talk about that too much," he said, looking out of the window over the dunes into the fog bank that moves from the Pacific onto the California coast almost every afternoon, where it stays until the next morning, a mellow mediator between sky and ocean, and ocean and land. The question which Frans Lanting avoids is supposed to lead to the topic of his work as a wildlife photographer.

His success came fast. He arrived at the peak of his profession in only ten years and has been able to add a new dimension to it. His stories, which normally take shape during long months on vacation, bring life to remote geographic names like South Georgia, Madagascar, Botswana, and often create the public image of these landscapes and animals for a worldwide audience.

Environmental Photography for my Documentary

By 2050 a third of the people on Earth may lack a clean, secure source of water. Join National Geographic in exploring the local stories and global trends that define the world's water crisis. Learn about freshwater resources and how they are used to feed, power, and sustain all life. See how the forces of technology, climate, human nature, and policy create challenges and drive solutions for a sustainable planet.

This is one reason why I wanted to do my documentary on the waters and environment of the jersey shore. http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/photos/freshwater-threatened/fenriverpollution.html . This site helped to give me ideas about topics and shots I can look out for. They have examples of freshwater and ocean water. They capture moments of waves crashing and ocean tides, while they have the calmness of the freshwater. They also have underwater shots on the national geographic site of course, but I did not have access to an underwater camera unfortunately. However, I would not want to photograph in the ocean here, no image would come out because the water isn't clear at all. But at the same time, maybe that would help to get a point across... I liked experimenting with time exposure and photographing water. I went to the beach for the sunrise to see what I could get. I didn't have a tripod at this point, but I tried to balance my camera on rocks and rails. I liked the outcome of shooting the rocks in the ocean with a 3-4 second exposure. The ocean waves move over the rocks creating a ghostly effect. I just think next time I should bring the tripod to make the rocks more crisp and in focus.
I also was passing the waterfall gardens on campus and I took some time exposure shots. It was in the middle of the day so the light was not ideal, but I still think I came up with some good stuff. I like both of the different options when shooting water. First, I shoot on automatic and froze the water as it was falling. I like this effect. Then, I used a 1/5th second exposure, followed by a 1 and 2 second exposure. This obviously blurred the water and showed the motion. I like how both of the shots turned out. I want to continue to explore the use of time photography on water.

Jack Flaherty

Jack Flaherty is a local sports photographer. He shoots high school sports including field hockey, soccer, football, swimming, lacrosse, softball, basketball, ice hockey, and gymnastics. Jack does some college sports, and has recently started coming to field hockey games here at Monmouth and taking pictures. What he does is he comes to the games, shoots, and uploads them on his website: http://www.jackflahertyphotography.com/photogallery.html. They are for sale there: 8x10 are $15, 11x14 are $35, and 16x20 are $60. I have started talking with him after the games, and he told me he spends roughly $20,000 on photography equipment each year. His newest lens he is using cost him $5,000.

I think he uses canon, but I don't know the names of the each lens or camera, but he has so much equipment. This makes me wonder if all of this equipment is necessary to get good pictures. I always thought that its not the camera that makes good pictures, its the photographer. But, if you don't have a high tech. camera for sports photography, it becomes really difficult to get the good shots. I invested in a 100-300mm canon lens. I am getting good results with this lens when I shoot sports, and the results are getting better the more I shoot. Jack's camera must shoot 10-20 images per second. He holds down the shutter continuously making sure that he doesn't miss anything. At our game yesterday he shot 2500 pictures. I looked at them all, and sometimes he has 20 images that are almost identical.

I really wonder if he has a unique skill for photographing sports, or what if, with the best possible equipment, anyone can shoot sports if they just hold down the shutter. What makes a good sports photographer? Is it someone who captures every possible moment of the game, or the ones who capture the pivotal action shots and emotional moments of the game?

Michael "Nick" Nichols

Nick is a wildlife photographer for National Geographic. http://www.michaelnicknichols.com/
I am really drawn to his work. He uses remote cameras that are triggerd by animals breaking an invisible beam. Some animals are so afraid of humans that it’s nearly impossible to photograph them up close. The trick is to have the animal make the kind of image that you would do if you were there.

He used this method to capture images of leopards. "In that first foray, after months of trial and error, we only had one publishable image (of a leopard with half his face out of the frame). Since then, we’ve refined the process, with much better results, as you’ll see here.Leopards have a huge range, from Northern China and Siberia all the way down to South Africa. The only place they can be seen regularly is in the private game reserves of South Africa, where baiting and hidden radio transmitters have been used to habituate them for tourism. They are incredibly secretive — a few even survive on dogs, pigeons, and rodents in the streets of Bombay."
"Legend (and maybe fact) has it that one leopard killed over 500 humans before finally being killed by the famed tiger hunter Jim Corbett. They are not meant to be seen except with a fleeting glance that leaves you unsure of what was there."

He took the famous image of Jane Goodall with the gorilla reaching out to touch her hair. I like this because she is not afraid of the animal and uses disarming body language with him.
I like the intimacy in his photographs. They make you feel like the people or animals do in the image.