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.

Christophe Huet

Christophe Huet is a french photoshopretoucher. I find his work very interesting and fascinating. He does advertising and I think that is even better because he can make money from his work. He created advertisings for Nike, Motorola, AIDES and Playstation. He started out working as a printer, and he trained himself on retouching. He has been retouching now for 10 years. I read that his main purpose is to make people forget the retouching itself even if it seems obvious because of the singularity of the image. Now he keeps on working as retoucher and manager at ASILE since 2005.
Sometimes, he refuses projects for personal reasons like ads for cigarettes, for junk industrial food, or others that degrade any kind of people. He thinks we have to be responsible for our act, that’s the attitude he tries to have for himself even if it’s not always easy to do. He does not want to say ‘yes’ to everything in the name of money. The artistic part of his job can’t make him forget his responsability. Likewise, he always tries to keep time to offert his job for association that struggle against cancer, smoking, aids, all bad treatment, ecology...
On his website, we can view his work and he also has a section where he shows the different steps involved in making the complex images. I find it amazing how he starts with one image and ends up only using a portion of it. He uses so many images in one piece and he makes it look so real even though most of them are impossibilities. I think his website is great. I like how he is not just a photographer and a retoucher, he comes up with the advertising ideas that are so original and eye catching.
I hope to develop photoshop skills that are half as successful as his are.
link: http://www.christophehuet.com/