Author: Joe

This author has written 657 articles

Adjustments vs Variations

Several adjustments and a couple of variations later

I’ve been a photographer for fifty-three years and in all those years I can count on my hand the number of times I took just one shot…of anything. The times that I did were when I was street shooting and I had one chance to get it before whatever I was going for had either changed or was gone altogether.

I virtually never take just one shot, it’s always a series of either adjustments or variations. It’s what I ‘Preach’ during my online classes with the BPSOP, or when I’m standing next to someone in one of my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct just about everywhere on Earth.

As I’m shooting, I look all around the frame. I’m doing my Fifteen Point Protection Plan, my Border Patrol, and the Four Corner Checkoff. Each time the shutter opens and closes I’m making adjustments, Shoot adjust, shoot adjust, shoot adjust, etc., etc., etc.

An adjustment can be nothing more than taking a step back to include all of the subject’s hand or foot, the rest of a tree, sign or car. It can also be moving in a step to exclude an unwanted hand or face coming into the frame, getting rid of a sign that has letters missing or some of the letters burned out on a sign; what about a streetlamp that should be on but isn’t?

The digital age has had a profound effect on photography. some good and so many not so good. One good thing that has come about is the ability to shoot a photo and immediately look at the back of your camera to check it out

The reason for adjustments? To achieve what I want in the camera, and not have to rely on a computer to fix the problems I could/should have done prior to clicking the shutter.

A variation is a different animal. The reason for a variation is to increase your chances of going home with one of those elusive ‘wall hangers’, and variations come in all types of reasons.

For example, If you’re into getting the right light, then you’re shooting from different points of view and thinking about my clock. Shoot then moving around to see how your subject looks lit from the side perhaps to bring out the texture, then decide on another variation by placing the sun behind your subject to backlight it.

I’ll occasionally (depending on how much time I have) completely change my position and lens. I’ll add or subtract people or objects, get on my knees or stomach, and anything else that comes to mind at that moment. Btw, at my age, it has to be a really good idea for me to get on my knees or stomach!!

Visit my website at www.joebaraban.com, and check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot some variations with me sometime.

JoeB

My Favorite Quotes: Minor White

Do you often go out shooting on your own for the pure pleasure of creating impressionable photographs for you and others to enjoy? If the answer is not only yes, but hell yes, then “read on McDuff “.

If you go out very early one morning, you see a field of sunflowers and you decide to photograph them. Do you take a photo just because they pretty to see and they make you smile? Of course that alone is a good enough reason, but there’s a lot more to it than that.

Let me backtrack and say that among some of the photographers whose work I often look at is a photographer named Minor White. who once said, “One does not photograph something simply for ‘what it is’, but ‘for what else it is.”

Over the years I have thought about that and have used the expression in various forms in my own teachings both in my online classes with the BPSOP, and in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct all around our (very round) planet.

Suppose you have taken your kids to Sesame Park in Dallas, and you see several yellow umbrellas set up for parents to hide under from the sun. Is it the umbrellas that interest you, or is it because you also see very big yellow triangles creating depth from overlapping each other?

How about the triangles created by the shadows in between the ridges of yellow? Or just the shadows themselves? Or even to go as far as the red, blue, and yellow colors that incidentally are the three primary (pigment) colors; not counting the red, blue, and green colors that make up primary light?

So you’re traveling and stop in a plaza in Sicily for some famous Gelato and you spot a toddler walking away from his bike. Do you try to photograph the kid or the bike? If it were me, I would take a photo of the patterns surrounding the bike that create all those fabulous diamonds and squares; and the shadows of the bike caused by the backlight.

  OK, so getting back to the sunflowers, You see a sunflower, but what else is it? It’s a flower that has petals glowing from the sun directly behind it that creates a pattern of color. It has beautiful texture that just happens to be one of the elements of visual design.

And so my fellow photographers, when you’re out ‘making’ your works of art, remember that the left side of your brain, the analytical side, sees an umbrella, a bike, and a sunflower. The right side of your brain, the creative side, sees everything else.

Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com, and check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.

JoeB

My Favorite Quotes: Pablo Picasso

Break all the rules!

Before reading this post, for all of you that have taken my part I and II classes, the school is bringing back my Gestalt class for a month, starting the first week in May. Here’s the link: https://bpsop.com/courses-1/

Every so often, either during a conversation with one of my online students with the BPSOP or in one of my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct all over the place, I’m told by one of my fellow photographers that they were, in turn, told to not do something while taking pictures. Well, it just happened again, so while it was still fresh in my mind I thought I would share it with you.

But first I’m going to digress a touch and give you the reason for this post. One of my all-time favorite painters was Pablo Picasso. Although I could go on and on about him, he was a painter that constantly re-invented himself. He was always bringing ‘something new to the art scene.

Picasso once said, ” Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”

I suppose it’s (maybe) true that we must learn the rules of photography, which to me is a complete waste of time. Rules are a hindrance to our imagination and the shackles keeping us from any creative thought. But, far be it for me to dispute one of the most imaginative and creative painters to ever have lived.

Getting back to the photographer I’m referring to, this person was obsessed with the notion that you always wanted your subject facing into the composition; leaving lots of room for him or it to walk, drive, or fly into. After a time trying to de-program him, especially since his mentor and president of the local camera club told him so, it was an aha moment for me…president of the camera club…that started to make perfect sense.

When he followed it up with always put your subject in the Rule of Thirds, and make sure to check the Histogram before clicking the shutter, I knew I had a photographer that would always ‘color inside the lines’.

Showing him examples of images that broke all the rules just couldn’t pull him away…even though he really liked them he was just past the ‘point of no return’.

A retired civil engineer and a confirmed left-brain thinker, I realized that it was better to just let him be and continue on down the road well-traveled.

Well, you can’t win them all.

Visit my website at www.joebaraban.com, and check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.

JoeB

Life Before Photoshop: Saturn Car Campaign

Look ma, no Photoshop!
Look ma, no Photoshop!

Before reading this post, for all of you that have taken my part I and II classes, the school is bringing back my Gestalt class for a month, starting the first week in May. Here’s the link: https://bpsop.com/courses-1/

In my ongoing quest to enlighten those photographers that started in the digital era, I like to explain to people that there was actually a time when you had to create your image in the camera without any help from Photoshop; mainly because it wasn’t born yet. I know it’s scary to a lot of you because we talk about it in my online class with the bPSOP and in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct around the planet. The thought of not being able to fix it later in front of a computer is chilling to say the least. YIKES!!!

I’m not opposed to using my Adobe CS5 program, because I tweak all my photos to some degree, but to me, the challenge is taking my visual idea and shooting it in the camera. The digital age has made photographers lazy. Why move a step to the right to take the telephone out of someone’s head when you can just use the Content Aware tool to remove it later? Why concern yourself with learning that 1/60th of a second at F/8 is going to look a stop darker than 1/60th of a second at F/5.6. there’s Lightroom to take care of that mistake.

To me, shooting on manual will make you a better photographer than setting your camera to one of many program modes. It’s a good way to learn exposure and shutter speed combinations.

In the top photo of the Saturn, everything was done in the camera. The color silver was chosen so it would reflect the ambient light of the sunset evenly without adding any additional light. My instruction to the location scout was to find a diner where the sun would set or rise directly behind it. Using my Sunpath software and my Morin 2000 hand bearing compass, I was able to know ahead of time if this location would work. Shooting close to Hollywood was always nice because I had access to any props I could conjure up in my imagination. It certainly helped here since the diner was abandoned; we added all the neon and interior lights.

The pavement looked terrible so I had a water truck come in and do what’s called a wet down. This makes the driveway not on;y hide the cracks and discoloration, but being wet, it reflected the lights from the diner.

By the way, the man sitting out in front was the agency’s Art Director. I put him there to add an editorial feel.

So, there you have it. A little pre-visualization and pre-production can achieve the same results as sitting in front of a computer for hours to create this photograph. I can assure you that you don’t have to have a big budget to be able to create in the camera. It comes down to whether being a well-rounded photographer that takes the time to challenge himself is more important that being a good digital technician. Why not have the best of both worlds?

Here’s the diner when we started to work on it:

Visit my new website at www.joebaraban.com, and check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime!

JoeB

Quick Photo Tip: Layers of Interest

Layers of interest

Before reading this post, for all of you that have taken my part I and II classes, the school is bringing back my Gestalt class for a month, starting the first week in May. Here’s the link: https://bpsop.com/courses-1/

In my opinion, based on fifty years of being not only an Advertising, Corporate, and Editorial photographer, but a teacher for almost forty of those years as well, I’ve found that there are two kinds of pictures.

In my daily critiques during one of my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct all around our planet,  I see first hand the photos that are being shot. I’ll often be standing next to someone that’s actually shooting….anything!!!

I also critique countless images sent in by one of my online students with the BPSOP…so, I’ll ask them what kind of photos is this going to be for. Is this shot going into the family and friends slideshow that will be seen on a Saturday night while eating pizza and beer, or is it going to be more serious and perhaps wind up on a website?

If it’s the former, then I say shoot away and let the explanation be told with a slice of Pepperoni Pizza as your pointer. It really doesn’t have any content as far as a photo with more things to look at than a flower arrangement outside a tourist store in some village in France; or some clown with a monkey begging for spare change in some square.

However, if it’s something more important to you (while also being in the slideshow), then it will need layers of visual interest. In other words that flower arrangement now has a small child smelling one of the flowers while the owner is watering the rest of them. Now it tells a story, a visual story that doesn’t need anyone talking…while chewing.

Here’s what I suggest, don’t separate pictures into different categories. Make all of them important, and you’ll come out better for it moving forward.

Visit my website at www.joebaraban, and check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.

JoeB

Food For Digital Thought: Observation vs Imagination

Waiting for breakfast early one morning in San Remo, Italy.

Before reading this post, for all of you that have taken my part I and II classes, the school is bringing back my Gestalt class for a month, starting the first week in May. Here’s the link: https://bpsop.com/courses-1/

When I critique one of my student’s photos in my online class with the BPSOP, and also in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct around the planet, I’ll talk about what they saw versus what they would have like to have seen.

Most photographers that I see (close-up) in action walk up to something, some person, or someplace, and bring up their camera to their eye and “take’ a picture. In other words, they take a picture of what they see. What I want my online students that take my classes is to ‘make’ a picture not of what they see, but what they would like to see.

In the fifty years I’ve been shooting I have rarely seen what I want. I guess I’m just too impatient to wait around for something I want to shoot. What I’m getting at is that I shoot what I’d like to see.

In other words, If I see a group of chairs lined up against a wall and one or two of them are making the overall composition un-balanced, I have no problem going up to them and arranging them the way I’d like to photograph them.

Now, there are those out there that call themselves”purists”, and would never think about moving something. On the other hand, those same purists have no problem going back to their computers and adding a lot of post-processing, aka HDR for one.

I can’t think of anything as “un-pure” as taking three exposures and combining them into one photo..but that’s just me. In all these years I’ve never had to do that and my photos come out pretty damn good. Btw, I know people that do this.

If I see some ordinary items one would see while being served breakfast, I’ll fool around with them until I see something worthy of shooting as in the photo above. To me, that’s being an artist, and make no mistake my fellow photographers we are all artists that have chosen a camera as our medium of choice.

And so I leave you with this, a camera on a tripod is just the same as a blank canvas on an easel.

Visit my new website at www.joebaraban.com, and check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come paint with me sometime.

JoeB

 

 

 

 

 

Food For Digital Thought: The Shadow Knows

I love large areas in shadow to add a dramatic edge.
I love large areas in shadow to add a dramatic edge.

Before reading this post, for all of you that have taken my part I and II classes, the school is bringing back my Gestalt class for a month, starting the first week in May. Here’s the link: https://bpsop.com/courses-1/

When I was a young kid, the family got our first television. We would all gather around it mesmerized and completely taken in by this new form of entertainment. One of the shows we use to watch on Saturday nights was a show called The Shadow.

Food For Digital Thought: Engage the Viewer

Engage the viewer

I don’t know about you, but I like people to look at and enjoy my photography. In order to do that I need to make my images contain enough visual interest to keep them around.

Like all of us, visual input is a part of everyday life, and as photographers, it’s our prime objective to present this visual information in a way that takes control of what the viewer sees when looking at our imagery.

We want to make the viewer an active participant when looking at our photos. For example, the more ways we can have the viewer move around our composition, while at the same time leaving and entering the frame the longer they will stick around. The more things we can get the viewer to discover while moving around the frame will also keep them around longer.

Think about putting people in your images; it’s a known fact that people like to see people in photos. Editorialize your pictures, in other words, have them ask questions, tell a story; which by the way is one of the definitions of editorial.

This is what engaging the viewer is all about. I primarily think about incorporating all the basic elements of visual design, especially color, and this is as good as it gets in keeping the viewer around for at last six seconds.

That might not seem like a lot, but consider that some television commercials can be as little as ten to thirty seconds of constant motion, so in that regard looking at a still photograph for six seconds is a big deal.

All this is a big part of what I teach online in my BPSOP online classes, and also in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct all over the world.

So, my fellow photographers, whatever you do do it on the path less traveled. Don’t follow any rules you’ve been taught to follow. Rules hinder the creative juices, and you’ll only wind up going down the well traveled road to mediocrity.

Visit my website at joebaraban.com, and check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.

JoeB

Food For Digital thought: Paralysis Through Analysis

Painting 101

Degas once said, ” Painting is easy when you don’t know how, very difficult when you do.”.

I find this to be the basis for writing this post. You see, I teach an online class with the BPSOP, and I also conduct my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops around out hopefully around the planet.

Most of the people that have taken both online classes have taken at least one of my workshops; some as many a ten. As their eye develops, and they’re using the right side of their brain to compose more and more, frustration begins to creep into their thought process.

They tend to over analyze everything and I can tell you from years of experience teaching, doing that is not in your best interest.

I show people how to use the artist palette I give them that instead of pigment, there are the basic elements of Visual Design: Color, Shape, Pattern, Texture, Form, Balance, and the most important of them all…Line.

When I say over-analyze, I mean they begin seeing design elements that are not really there except for in their imagination. They get so tense that they almost become paralyzed and wind up either not shooting anything at all, or shooting something that winds up being deleted on the computer monitor.

So, my fellow photographers, when you go out shooting it needs to be fun and not something you overthink. Making visual mistakes comes with the territory, and everyone makes them…me included.

Visit my new website at www.joebaraban.com, and check out my upcoming workshops at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.

JoeB

Quick Photo tip: Border Patrol

Went through my checklist for UFO's.
Went through my checklist for UFOs.

One of the first posts I wrote when I started this blog (way back when) was on one of if not the most important tools my online class with the BPSOP, and in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct around the planet takes with them…my “Fifteen Point Protection Plan”.

This “15PPP” as I refer to it is designed to help photographers look for things they don’t want in their composition, and to put things they should include. From that time to the present I’ve found myself expanding on this topic since it just wasn’t enough help. Now besides my protection plan, I’ve been including two additional ways to protect yourself from what I call unwanted UFOs. I tell my fellow photographers to not only run through the fifteen points but to also check the four corners and what I describe as the “Border Patrol”.

What I mean is to run your eyes along the edges of your frame; the edges that border your photo. Run them along one side, then the next, then the next, until you’re back to where you started. Doing this, along with the four corners and your Fifteen Point Protection Plan will keep you from discovering these annoying elements before you click the shutter and not in front of your computer screen…that is if you’re lucky enough to see it even then.

Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com and www.instagram.com/barabanjoe. Also, check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.

JoeB

Food For Digital Thought: If I Had Hammer…

A different lens

I’ll admit that in my college days, and the days soon after, one of my favorite songs was sung by one of my all-time favorite groups. The song was If I Had a Hammer, and the group was Peter, Paul, and Mary.  I won’t take up space or time here but it was about someone that would hammer all the time, day or night. He would hammer out all the social injustices and love (lots of them in the sixties) all over the land.

Ok, you might be asking yourself how this could possibly relate to this Photography Blog???

I’ll answer that by submitting to you this saying,” If you have a hammer in your hand and everything looks like a nail, then you have a problem”. Still wondering????

In my online class with the BPSOP, and in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct around the planet, I’m constantly telling my fellow photographers to try different lenses. So many people get comfortable with one lens or one focal length on their zoom until it gets to be a problem. What I mean is that a comfort zone might be established and sooner rather than later a fear will creep into your psyche and manifest itself deep into your thought process. It’s very powerful and could prohibit you from advancing creativity.

Yes, I’ve seen it happen, and believe me it’s not a pretty sight!!!

It can become so obvious, that after a few days in one of my workshops, or even online, I can almost tell who shot the submitted picture without looking at the name. Either because the photo was taken at the exact same height (that would be the height of the person’s eyes to the ground), or the same things were in focus or out of focus across the composition, or the amount of subject matter was the same from edge to edge and from top to bottom, or the shutter speed, ISO, and the aperture were identical. It’s no wonder that I’m always being told by a student that they feel like they’re finding it difficult to be creative.

How do we go about taking your photos “up a notch”? It’s the ability to look at the same subject matter/location as many ways as you can. That means changing your lens all the time. Look at it with a wide-angle, something at least in the 17- 20mm range, then from 35-70mm, then over 70mm if you can. Of course, this is made easier if you have a couple of zoom with you; sometimes a little too easy!!!

What I mean by that is zoom lenses make us lazy. It can keep us from moving around a scene. Ernst Haas once said, “The best zoom lens is your feet”, and I couldn’t offer better advice to anyone.

Next time you go out, put on a lens you’ve completely forgotten about and shoot with it. It sounds easy, but for many people, it can be tooooooo scary to even consider. You just got to “Get over the hump”!!!

Visit my new website at www.joebaraban.com and check out my 2020 workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.

JoeB  

Workshop Stuff: Cuba/2020

As I found it

Besides conducting my personal “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops and teaching online with the BPSOP, I just returned from my workshop in Cuba as part of the Santa Fe Workshops, and it was a wonderful experience. Good as my other four trips, and in some ways better. This time we based out of Remedios, which is mostly East and a little South of Havana; very close to the coast.

Remedios couldn’t be more different than the three workshops I have done in Havana. Where Havana is full of energy (and tourists), offering a diverse set of photo ops, Remedios is on the other end of the spectrum. It’s a lot closer to the feel of Santiago.

Here is the program Kip put together of all the participants: https://youtu.be/Pli8lOkJCX4

Being less considered a tourist destination, Remedios is a centerpiece for what would be the old and traditional colonial town one might think of when talking about Cuba…after Havana, that is.

The group of people was absolutely great as well as talented. When you mix that with a fun, friendly, accommodating, and very professional staff of very good Cuban photographers, I just can’t think of a place I would have rather been. Thank you Jorge, Claudia, and Sandor for your help and friendship.

Special thanks to Kip who is the program director and after at least a hundred trips, he still approaches it as though it was his first; he’s in love with Cuba.

Here are a few of my images, including the one at the top:

As I have said, When I’m out shooting I don’t expect to see everything I want to photograph. I look for different pieces of the puzzle and try to put them together to form the finished one. Right after the last piece has been put in, that’s when I shoot.

That’s not to say that I’m not always looking for ‘moments’ because I am; my background includes shooting for the wire services. For me, those “rare special moments” are elusive and don’t come easy, so I fill the time taking pictures of what I’d like to see. Having a background in painting and design, a camera on a tripod is just like a blank canvas on an easel.

That said, virtually all of my images were actually shot as I saw them, which is sort of rare for me; not planned, just a coincidence. Besides showing a few of my photos, I have also included a short program we put together to showcase all the photographers in my group.

Visit my website at www.joebaraban.com, and check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.

JoeB

Food For Digital Thought: Giving Meaning to Photographs

Just another sunrise?

In my online class with the BPSOP, and also in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I will send out this article for all my fellow photographers to read. In my recent workshop to Boston, I had people read it and one woman said I should post it on my blog.

I told her that I actually did about ten years ago but now that she mentioned it I would post it again. I had found on the internet years ago so I thought I would share with all of you again.

Unfortunately, I failed to write down the name of the woman or man who wrote it, and now I can’t locate the article again. I would have loved to credit it to her/him as I find it a great read. If you are the author or know who she is, please let me know so I can credit it properly.

Here’s the article just the way I found it:

“Unless you take photographs strictly for yourself, you probably like to share your images with others. What makes that dreaded slide show your uncle pulls out every time you visit so boring is that while it has tons of associations for him and your aunt, it has none for you. After all, it was their trip to Borneo, not yours. You didn’t share the experience of buying food from a street vendor or smell the smells of the urban neighborhoods. So, pictures of them don’t mean much to you.

You should keep this exclusivity in mind when editing your own pictures. Ask yourself, “Do I like my images because they have a certain emotional appeal to me alone?” A special vacation shot or a picture of your grand kids, might be an example. Or, do your images convey a more universal meaning that will inspire emotional response in others? It helps to gather feedback from a trusted friend.

REMEMBER THAT BELOVED SUNSET OR SUNRISE YOU HAVE–SO EXCELLENTLY CAPTURED, SO EXPERTLY PRINTED AND FRAMED–MAY BE JUST ANOTHER SUNSET TO SOMEONE ELSE.

Learn how composition can affect meaning. Placement of the subject within the viewfinder can have profound effects on the meaning. Placing the subject low and surrounded by a large amount of negative space sends a different message than cropping it close. The former may send the message of hopelessness or depression, the latter a message of intimacy or friendship.

It’s a challenge to create images with meaning. It’s what separates a good photographer from a mediocre one. In judging contests and exhibits, I’ve seen many prints that are technically well done, but lack depth of meaning. These may be processed to resist aging in preparation for archival preservation, but they won’t stand the test of time on anyone’s wall–except, perhaps, the photographer’s own.

For, without an emotional connection to the image, we’ll grow weary of it. It’ll remain on exhibition for a few months and then be taken down or simply ignored as part of the background blur of our lives.

Our ability to connect with an image emotionally entices us to keep coming back to an image over and over again in order to repeat the emotion. Or, what’s even more exciting, we may find new meaning in the image as we grow emotionally and experience it in a fresh, new way.

A part of the issue surrounding meaning is the controversy over whether an image should be titled. Many contests require that the photographer name her image as part of the process of entering. And I know of several professional competitions in which the title of the print is actually part of the judging process.

I can’t tell you how strongly I object. A strong print needs no title. If I have to be told what the meaning of a print is via a title, I wonder if the photographer is certain of his message.

Titles also serve to direct and/or mislead. A title given by a photographer may direct his viewer in a particular direction, but without the limitations of a title, a viewer may discover meaning which was only subliminally apparent to the photographer. We have all taken a picture and thought it meant one thing, only to find that everyone else was seeing something else– something that emerged from our subconscious.

A title, in this instance, would have served to confuse the real meaning.

And, of course, there is the issue of language and culture itself. If a title is important, what if it’s in a language the viewer doesn’t understand? Does the image cease to have meaning? Of course, not. Art, in general, and photography specifically, are universal languages. They speak to us all–regardless of our native tongues or cultures.”

Visit my website at www.joebaraban.com, and check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.

JoeB

Quick Photo Tip: The Wide Angle Lens

  What’s your go-to lens? The lens you will put on if you’re just walking around the narrow streets in one of the various medieval villages hunting for that elusive wall hanger? For me, it’s the 17-40mm.

To digress a touch, I’m not a proponent of always using one lens as in one of the prime lenses that so many of the people in my online class with the BPSOP, or in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct around the planet always have on.

I find those lenses to be limited since they have such a shallow DOF, which is why I don’t own one. If you’re of the kind that just uses that lens, then, for the most part, your photos will tend to look the same; especially when you’re shooting on a program and not paying attention to what’s in focus and what isn’t.

As I said, I keep my 17-40mm lens on, and it’s not because I use the zoom a lot…because I don’t. It just gives me a good range of focal lengths when shooting in tight and narrow locations.

It’s always interesting when I tell my fellow photographers that I use it to shoot everything from landscapes to portraits; especially environmental portraits. As long as I keep my camera level, I can get ‘up close and personal’ to my subject while showing a lot of their surroundings.

If you don’t pay attention to whether your camera is level, especially when you place your subject close to the edge of the frame, there will be distortion and not the good kind.

 So next time you go out shooting slip on a wide-angle lens and see what it’s like. It will take some getting use to but you’ll find that the reward is well worth it.

Btw, all three photos were shot with my 17-40mm lens.

Visit my new website at www.joebaraban.com, and check out my upcoming workshops at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.

JoeB