John G Wilbanks Photography

At The Airport

2011-05-03T14:12:00.000-07:00

There is nothing exciting about sitting at an airport waiting for your flight. Oh, sure, show up 2 1/2 hours early for international flights...then sit around for 2 hours trying to invent new ways of being bored. But I digress. I think most photographers are always "on" and when they have a camera in
their hand and some time, they want to shoot. I’m no different and while waiting at airports I always seem to end up looking for something to photograph. Most of them end up looking like “oh, hey, another picture of an airport”, nothing too exciting.

On my last trip out, the morning sun shining through the stained glass caught my eye. It was so bright I knew it would silhouette everything else, but I liked the hard contrast. I plopped myself down on the floor, started thinking composition and just as I was getting things figured out, a couple people walked into my shot. Oh great, just when I was about to shoot. At first they were a hinderance to the photo I was trying to make, then I realized they were the photo. The image quickly became more about the people than about the stained glass. I started thinking “stock photography” and what buyers would be looking for. I shot abuncha photos like this one with everything from business men with rolling suitcases, to couples, two men, two women, you name it. Any variation that came by...that’s what stock photography is all about. While shooting, I realized placement of the foot was important, not to let the person intersect with the columns, don’t shoot them in profile, etc, etc. The 24-105 IS is great for this kind of photography because it allows me to sit in one spot and get just the crop I'm looking for.
After about 1/2 hour and a bit of time editing, I ended up with about 10 variations of this photo that will fit a number of stock requests. Love this guys hat!

Doorway in Siena

2011-04-20T09:10:00.000-07:00

Sometimes what looks like a lucky shot is really created from experience and learning what works and when. I created this image one evening while walking along the many photographically interesting streets in Siena, Italy. By the way, if you ever get to Florence take a side trip and spend at least a day in Siena.
I say what looks lucky, because of the incredibly balanced lighting. The spot lights aren’t blowing out on the carpets, the ceiling isn’t hidden in shadow and the outside is exposed well. There are few times of day when everything balances out like that; usually before the sun comes up and shortly after the sun goes down. This was shot about 15 minutes after sunset when there was still enough exterior light to give us details on the outside, but not so much as to create a too dark interior. Waiting any longer would have resulted in not enough exterior light, which would make us blow out the interior detail or silhouette the outside. Definitely time for a tripod. Shot at f16 for maximum sharpness and depth of field, this was a 3 second exposure and the small aperture created the star effect on the lights.
I’m a true believer in not putting hard elements in the center of a photo, but sometimes it can’t be avoided. Luckily the door frame is black so it doesn’t draw all of your attention and the line of track lights on the ceiling help lead your eye back and into the arched doorway at the far end of the room. Now, I kind of wish I had pulled back a bit and included more of the arch above the door, but that would have meant including the entire door frame. I think that would have boxed in the photo and created a sense of being outside looking in. Instead, leaving the door frame out helps to welcome the viewer into the room.

Spring Green

2011-04-14T10:11:00.000-07:00

Sometimes a subject can be as simple as a colour. After a week driving the Pacific Coast Highway, from Los Angeles up to Oregon, I was running out of time and had no choice but to head straight home to Seattle. The fun was over and I had only the boring drive up I-5 to look forward to. Within a few miles of getting on the freeway, I came around a bend and just had to stop.

   Spring is a great time for photography with the flowers blooming and trees covered in all their new green. I like this photo because it shows the transition from Winter to Spring, bringing with it a hope of new things to come. Even more so because of the beautiful side lighting. Shadows and highlights make a photograph...it’s brings out depth and defines dimension.
   There wasn’t much thought put into this image, but I still like it. At first I wasn’t all too keen on the tire tracks running up the side of the clearing, then I realized it was something that would allow the viewer to place themselves inside the photo. I think this is just one of those classic “what a great place for a picnic” shots. We can all imagine grabbing a bottle of wine, some snacks, and your girlfriend or wife (or boyfriend/husband for you girls out there) and sitting down at the base of a tree to enjoy the last of the evening suns’ rays.
   Nothing too technical here; sometimes a photo just works.

Impressionism

2011-04-07T07:16:00.000-07:00

   Did I mention I like water? That I like blurry things? Just like there is a time and place for tack sharp detail, there is also a time and place for blurry, moving stuff. Of all the painters throughout history, Monet is without a doubt the one that really affects me.
For me, Monet’s work can be moody or happy, colorful or not, personal or general. But what it isn’t about, is details...it’s more about shape. Let the viewer fill in the details. We really don’t need them. Art is about impressions.
While hiking Oregon’s Eagle Creek trail I stopped at a wide spot to rest and dip my feet in the coolness of the creek...a reprieve from the 100+ Summer day.    As I sat on a rock I relaxed and allowed myself to be engulfed and mesmerized by the sound of the rushing water. Sitting there, I wondered if I could capture what I was feeling in a photo. I’ve said before that water gives movement to light and that’s what I was looking for. I wanted the water to carry the light from one detail into another, to move across elemental boundaries. So I chose an area with small rapids where the white water could introduce tones to the greens and blues reflected from the surrounding trees, canyon walls and the sky.
   Honestly, I don’t remember what my shutter speed was for this but I’m thinking it was between 1/2 and 1 second. This was purely an experimental photo and I tried numerous times to get just the right blur. I wanted the look of brushstrokes in the water; something that rose above the level of a simple photograph and approached a different medium. The resulting image is all about color, shape and direction. As I look at this photo again it makes me want to seek out more opportunities to create impressionistic images. I hope you appreciate it as much as I do.

Blurry Beach

2011-04-02T08:11:00.000-07:00

   Okay, let’s just jump right into this one. What’s the most important part of this image? I really can’t decide, so let's break it down to it’s elements and figure it out. So, what are the elements? Water, sand, rock.   Black, white.   Stationary, motion. Sharpness, blur. Hard, soft. Did I get them all? Feel free to add a few more.
   Movement here isn’t just about the water shot at a slow shutter speed to show it’s motion and direction. It’s also about the line of rock that brings your eye into the photo at the bottom left and moves it up and in along a diagonal. Diagonals lines, after the “C” and “S” curves, are one of the most dynamic lines you can incorporate into a photo. On a side note, the rocks are also in groups of three. We tend to visually like groups of odd numbers. Admittedly, that’s just a happy accident, but it’s probably something that attracted me to this shot in the first place.
   Next, we have the contrast between the hard and soft and the black and white. We can consider each of these as supporting actors in the photo, with the soft/white set contrasting the hard/black set. An interesting thing here is that even though the water is moving from right to left as the wave recedes, the line this motion creates moves the eye in the opposite direction bringing you into the image.
   The black sand here acts as the canvas upon which the rest of the elements can layer. Sometimes working as a background to soften the brightness of the water, sometimes working as an element on its’ own.
   Oh, and remember when I mentioned the “S” curve? There’s one here too. Starting from the set of rocks at the bottom and moving along the white/black line as it undulates from lower left to upper right. And don’t even get me started on the Fibonacci Ratio and the Golden Mean.

Fort Worth Stockyards

2011-03-30T08:15:00.000-07:00

I love dark, moody photos. There's something about them that makes me want to spend time with the image and see how many details are hidden inside the shadows. Can I see the grain of the wood? How about a persons face? Maybe there are details in the texture of their clothing that you don't notice at first. The more time a person will spend viewing a photograph the more successful that image is.

It was a sunny day at the Ft Worth, Tx Stockyards where there are a lot of older buildings and brick roads and some rail lines and just abuncha stuff to entertain a photographer (I think I invented a new word). Over and over again I was drawn back to the stables. Windows way up high and the doors on either end of the stables provided the only available light, so I bumped up my ISO a bit and braced myself along the door jamb. My intention was to shoot some underexposed photos and let the shadows fall where they may with the hope that the darker areas would bleed off the edges and "trap" the viewers eye inside the image. Just after I shot a my first photo, a cowboy walked out of a stall...perfect! Then a horse followed him...more perfect! Then they stopped...even more perfect! Then, he turned profile to me and faced the horse while he put on his jacket. I don’t know how many levels of perfect there are, but I couldn’t have staged this.
I could have shot a couple more exposures and processed it in HDR to create a more balanced image, but that would have defeated my intention. I wanted the darkness. I wanted to exaggerate the darkness within the stables and set the mood. Another element is the door at the far end. Normally I don't like to let any part of my photo blow out to white, but here it helps create a stark outline to the cowboy. It even allows us to see the rope connecting the cowboy to his horse. A little pre-visualization and some luck combine for a compelling photograph. You can never have too much luck in photography.

Iguazu Falls, Argentina

2011-03-25T21:09:00.000-07:00

   Along the border of Argentina and Brazil lies Iguazu Falls...one of the largest waterfalls in the world (second to Victoria Fallis in Africa). At more than 1.5 miles long with over 250 separate falls, you can spend all day exploring and still not see everything. I spent the night in the Argentine city of Puerto Iguazu and hopped the first bus to the falls. By the time I got there the heat was already starting to build, but luckily the humidity was very tolerable...something I'm told isn't normal for the jungle. A short train ride and a longer hike brought me to this section of the falls where it appeared to stretch to the horizon.
   When photographing nature you don't always get to pick the direction your subject is moving away from the camera, so you have to figure out ways around some problems. The way the falls are oriented from this viewing platform, along with the vegetation growth at the edge of the falls posed some physical as well as creative problems. First, the creative problem: The human eye is attracted to the brightest part of any photograph. In this image, that is the row of waterfalls that stretch from right to left into the photo. That leaves a whole lot of nothing in the rest of the shot. I was lucky to have the sun in a position to create a rainbow which helps anchor the bottom left of the photo. Without it, there would have been a lot of visually empty space.
   The other problem was the fenced off platform I was standing on. It almost looks like I'm floating in air over the edge of the falls. Except it wasn't me that was floating, it was the camera. This takes a little practice, but it's something I learned years ago. I placed my camera on the tripod, put a level in the hotshoe and set the self-timer. After that, it was simply a matter of figuring the exposure, extending the tripod horizontially out over the falls and getting lucky with the composition. The speed of the water going over the falls was a big help too...I didn't have to shoot at a super slow speed to give the water motion the way I like.
   I don't know if any photograph can do these falls justice or relay the feeling of awe one gets from Iguazu, but at least we can try and give the viewer a sense of place.

The Tango

2011-03-18T20:00:00.000-07:00

   I don’t photograph people. I’m not a portrait photographer and have little interest in posing people for a photo. But sometimes an image is just screaming to be made. After wandering around the “La Boca” neighborhood of Buenos Aires for a few hours, I was hungry and in need of a place to sit down, have lunch and relax for a while. Many restaurants in La Boca have tango dancers out front where you can sit under a canopy, have lunch and watch the show. However, I wasn’t in the mood for the touristy feel of the main drag so I walked a few blocks out of the square and found a quiet cafe just as rain started to fall. Taking a seat next to the window, I watched people scramble to get in out of the rain.
   While I was eating lunch, these dancers turned on a quite CD player and started dancing in the aisle from the counter to the front door. It didn’t take long to notice how beautifully soft the light was as they approached the open door and how quickly it faded as they moved away from it. A perfect lighting set up. I grabbed my camera, attached the 24-105 IS lens and started following them back and forth. Shooting wide open at f4 still meant a slow shutter speed, but with the image stabilizing lens I   knew I could shoot hand held; I just had to practice panning with them and figure out how to time the shot just right.
   I knew I wanted to motion-blur the background, but I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with the dancers. After reviewing some practice shots I realized I had to blur the dancers a little to bring life into the image, but also include some sharp elements to give your eye something the rest upon. This only occurred when they approached the door and turned around. I followed and shot, followed and shot and 15-20 images later I finally got what I wanted. They are just starting their turn. The light is dramatic yet soft, his face and eyes are sharp and she is blurred with the movement of the turn. I think this image captures everything tango is about.

Montreal Botanical Gardens

2011-03-15T17:03:00.000-07:00

Montreal is Canada's version of Paris; a beautiful city with an Old World charm. Like Paris, Montrealers take great pride in their parks, particularly the botanical gardens on the site of the 1976 Summer Olympics. There you will find Japanese Gardens, Chinese Gardens, Alpine Gardens, desert environments, Greenhouses...the list goes on.

   Photographically, water is like a magnet to me. Unlike most other elements water gives movement to light. You can shoot it fast and stop all the action, or you can shoot it slow and let the water carry its' light through the photo. I love the slower shutter speeds and try to use them with water whenever I can.
This shot was particularly enjoyable because the waterfall was in the shade and the foreground was in the sun. This gave me the opportunity to get motion in the falls without blowing out the highlights in the water. The wind cooperated as well. It took a little patience but after a few minutes the slight breeze slowed enough to get this image.
   What I think works particularly well in here is how the foreground is back lit by the sun, allowing it to pop and form a border around the waterfall. This helps create dimensionality and draw your eye into the photo. Thanks to back lighting, the pine branch that drops down from the center into the upper left stands out from the background. Without it, the branch would have just blended into the background as a green blob. The mix of sun and shade also added color contrast, with the waterfall going just a bit cooler than the foreground elements.
   The contrasts of color, light, and movement all add to the success of a photograph and should be considered every time you point your camera at a subject.

A new look at Paris

2011-03-12T20:11:00.000-08:00

   Paris is one of my favorite cities. Now that I've been there a number of times, I'm able to stop photographing just the iconic images and focus more on what makes Paris, Paris. It's the side streets, the neighborhood within a neighborhood that give a city its' flavor....its' local color. I'm also starting to shoot in a more relaxed, less formal way; leaving the tripod behind and "freestyling" it a bit more.
   Today's cameras are amazing with their ability to shoot high ISO with incredible noise control. The accompanying image was shot hand held (800ISO) at the wide end of a 17-35mm lens. The raw image was processed as a modified HDR image. Letting the HDR software tone down the highlights and even things out a bit, I then added a darker exposure to bring back the dark area on the inside of the restaurant, behind the rotisserie.
   The goal here was to create enough visual interest to engage the viewer, while at the same time maintaining the drama of the image.