So I decided to hop off my bike at an intersection and capture some of the mayhem as it rolled through. It’s nice to have someone blocking the intersection to prevent cars from trying to speed through and possibly hurt some folks on the ride. I know it sucks being stuck in a car for 5 minutes, but I guess most residents just mark up random parades and traffic jams as part of the cost of living in San Francisco.

That doesn’t mean people don’t lose their cool. As I was shooting pics of riders, car horns were angrily blasting behind me. Drivers were yelling at cyclists, cyclists were yelling back at the drivers, and amidst all of this chaos I saw this adorable couple on a Vespa. It was as if they were unaware of the all the hostility around them. Actually, it was as if they could care less about where they were, as long as they were there together.

Couple on Vespa by Doctor Popular - All Rights Reserved

This was one of the only good shots I got during the whole ride. It’s actually one of my favorites of the year. My only complaint is that I wish I could have found a way to show the crazy juxtaposition of angry commuters and cyclists surrounding this oblivious couple. Despite the limitations of the iPhone camera, I was able to work with the environmental light to get a decent picture which still warms my heart everytime I see it.

One of them had a Canon 5D MarkII slung over his shoulder so I was expecting to view some eclectic shots of the street artists or other eccentric personalities that flocked to the area on a daily basis. Perhaps they’d show us a beautiful montage of the sun setting over the ocean.

Instead, reflecting back at me from the viewfinder was a dull, flat, one-dimensional photo of a denim skirt with the slightest hint of a girl’s buttocks hanging out. “Wait, wait, I took that shot. He (pointing to the friend with the camera) is a real photographer so he instinctively dropped to the ground and laid flat on his stomach to get the right angle.” They high-fived each other and the photographer in question echoed “down and dirty.”

I don’t think I really need to elaborate on what came next but I was definitely incensed by the blatant disrespect given to an unassuming woman I didn’t even know. Smiling politely, my friend and I excused ourselves, carried on with our day, and forgot about the incident.

Three weeks later, I found myself at Maker Faire with my camera in tow along with a 50mm, f/1.8 lens. Much to the bemusement of my boyfriend at the time, I was eagerly shooting almost everything I encountered at the DIY exhibition. While making my way through the main auditorium, I spotted Reuben Margolin’s infamous Pentagonal Wave hanging from the ceiling.

I immediately took a shot standing off to the side with the other lens I was carrying with me, a Nikkor 70-200mm, f/2.8, but was dissatisfied with how empty and hollow an otherwise magnificent structure looked through my own eyes. Standing directly underneath it and shooting upwards had an even worse effect. Because I didn’t have a wide-angle lens on me, I couldn’t get a clear shot of more than a few of the most prominent features of the piece – the aluminum barrels (actually, astonishingly, constructed from cardboard rolls).

At that very moment, I had the most unexpected recurrence I could’ve ever imagined; if I wanted to effectively capture the true essence of this installation in all of its grandiose glory, plus accentuate its most prominent features that were hovering a mere few inches over my head, I’d have to get “down and dirty.”

Of all the books and blogs posts I’ve ever read about doing anything possible to position yourself and get that perfect shot, those two guys at the bar in Venice Beach a few weeks back are exactly what I recalled in that very moment. So I laid down on my back, on a dirty auditorium floor traipsed on by thousands of attendees throughout the day, opened up the aperture on my 50mm lens to about 2.4, decreased the ISO from 800 to 400 in hopes of minimizing the glare from the fluorescent ceiling light looming above, increased the shutter speed to about 160, and fired away for about a minute before my neck started cramping from the strain.

Reuben Margolin's Pentagonal Wave by Kara Murphy - All Rights Reserved

What I love most about this shot is that it focuses clearly on a few dozen barrels (there are 288 strings keeping just as many afloat). Half of the wooden pentagon structure at the top fits perfectly in the frame and allows a viewer to fill in the rest of the details with their own imagination.

The beauty of evolving as a photographer is that it forces you to do unconventional things to tell your story. Sometimes it means positioning yourself in a way that makes you uncomfortable but allows you to capture a perspective that others miss. Even with an iPhone, I find myself lying sideways on the ground so I can get a shot like this one.

Never be afraid to get “down and dirty” when taking pictures. Others might not understand why you’re doing it but what you’ll have is the possibility of a distinct advantage that makes all the difference between a good photo and a great one.

I was born in New York, grew up outside of Boston, and now live in Southern California. I’ve been to my share of big cities, San Francisco, New York City, and Los Angeles, as well as Hong Kong.

They all have in the neighborhood on 3-8 million people.

Beijing has just under 20 million.

The city is huge, insanely busy and incredibly chaotic. Cars are a relatively new thing there and so is traffic control. Traffic lights and laws are treated as more suggestion than hard rules. This goes for busses, cars, scooters, bicycles and people. Everyone just goes. I witnessed an elderly gentleman cross a busy 4-lane expressway like he was walking through the park, the vehicles honking, but somehow avoiding him.

The amazing thing is it seems to work. It flows almost seamlessly.

It’s through all of this that I ventured out with my camera – a Canon 5D and a couple of lenses (Canon 24-105mm ƒ/4 and 16-35mm ƒ/2.8). There were more photo opportunities than one can sometimes capture when you’re in a bustling city and Beijing has exponentially more.

After making my way through the subway system, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, back alleys and street markets over the course of 6 hours or so, I ended up in an area called Houhai.

Houhai is the name of a lake and its surroundings in the Shichahai neighborhood which has a high concentration of shops, bars and restaurants. It also attracts a lot of tourists, though mainly Chinese tourists.

As I made my way through the throngs, I spied a third-story rooftop where people were having drinks and made my way there. The rooftop didn’t have any tables open, so the host directed me up a narrow staircase, and to a lone table, on a balcony, overlooking the intersection. I put my camera bag down, ordered a Yanjing beer and surveyed the area.

I ended up getting a really great view and was able to relax and just watch. It was getting breezy and the willowy trees were moving lightly while delivery bikes, pedi-cabs, scooters and pedestrians performed their ballet. The sun was just beginning to fall behind me, so I started taking some shots, trying to photograph the scene as it played out.

Houhai in Beijing, China by Tim Erdmann - All Rights Reserved

This is my favorite, as it captured the swaying trees, the setting sunlight, the sense of chill in the air, the Chinese flags which hang from every window and of course the people, moving in all different directions.

I’ll probably go back again, but nothing will match the first time you experience a new city, new culture and new land.

Through the lens, at dusk by Terry Chay - Photo License: Creative Commons, Noncommercial. Nikon D70, Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-4.5G VR; 1/30 sec @ f/5.6, iso 1000, 200mm (300mm)

The image above may seem striking. From a compositional standpoint, it has a classic and obvious “frame-within-a-frame” and violates the “rule-of-thirds” to emphasize “symmetry.” We could talk about how the lines of the yellow frame lead the eye to the circle and the circle frames the cat’s eyes as it looks at the viewer—the lens reflecting the frame’s pattern, reflecting back off the cat eyes, and finally reflecting back into the lens itself.

And if I taught a course on photography, I’d pretend that this was all intended and that this image sprung as a fully-realized Athena from my brain and into my Nikon camera.

But this isn’t about that myth.

This is about how the sausage gets made.

…

I was living in a two-story apartment loft that was getting unbearably hot as the summer wore on. I finally got a ladder to contact paper over the skylights and keep the heat at bay. After papering over the first light, I climbed down to have a drink and wipe away the sweat, when one of our cats, Gibson, decided to climb up and assess “his domain” from a higher perch.

Gibson plays on my laddah!

Eventually, he figured out how to get to the top and the shape started to align from where I was sitting below. I put down my glass of water, grabbed the nearest camera, and started shooting. The ladder was 8 feet from base to top, so it was only a stroke of luck that my 18-200mm happened to be on the camera and I had stupidly chosen the bright midday sun to start with my papering project. Some prompting with the fingers coupled with the evolutionary nature of a cat’s tapetum making them far-sighted, and I was able to get the cat positioned enough to create a frame-within-frame symmetrical composition involving some beautiful reflections.

Of course “some prompting” and “getting the cat positioned” are euphemisms that gloss over the much more apt and truthful reality of “herding cats” or, in this case, “herding a cat.”

Through the lens outtakes (6045-6058)

Out of what would be an entire roll in the days of film, there is exactly one usable image.

That’s very common and the sausage most photographers won’t tell you about. A striking style comes from an opportunity based mostly on stupidity and a ruthless editing down from a constant stream of the basic and prosaic.

I hope the great Galen Rowell will forgive me if I pull a couple paragraphs from one of my favorite essays by him to explain myself:

After my work began to be published I was surprised when people told me they could often identify it before they saw the credit line. At first I didn’t believe them. I thought they were just flattering me. I gained some insight into how a style emerges when I saw the shoots of several well-known photographers being edited at National Geographic. I knew the hallmarks of their various styles, but in their raw film, as in mine, inconsistent work greatly outnumbered pictures with strong vision. Yet after the final edit, each photographer had created key images that unmistakably showed a unique way of seeing.

Ansel Adams wrote eloquently about the difference between external and internal photographic events. The most meaningful photographic styles are always reflections of the internal. We react not so much to what a photographer sees, but to how he or she sees and renders the subject for us. Personal style comes from within, from a photographer’s unconscious and conscious choices.

As you go through this advent, you will see images and wonder: can I ever have such vision?

As a body of work, the answer is no. If even Rowell’s was a set of “inconsistent work,” yours or mine as a body could never be a photo stream of constantly perfect images. As a single image, the answer is still no. You are not them and these images are among their best.

But do not despair, because a photographer’s best images are so because they are reflection of an internal which is not better or worse, but simply different than your own. Keep at it and I promise you that your best will be better than any of us can hope to achieve. Because those, and not every outtake, will be your best because they have your style—a reflection of your own unique internal.

Happy Holidays from me (and the team at PhotoAdvent) to you and yours!

Over thanksgiving my family took a trip to Dominical, Costa Rica. Everyday we would head out early to check out a local beach near the house that we rented. Our favorite turned out to be Playa Uvita. It was perfect! Gentle surf, beautiful rainforest coming right up to the beach, not a person in sight and monkeys in the trees…it couldn’t have been much better.

Dancer by Scott Cowlin - All Rights Reserved

I took this picture on a walk that my daughter and I took to investigate the “whale tail” that was a mile or so down the beach. (the whale tale is small spit of land that is only accessible when the tide is out and looks like a whale trail form above)

It was late afternoon and the tide was going out which left this great wet sand that acted like a mirror. I took a lot of pictures with the sun at my back to capture the great reflections but as we headed back I noticed how beautifully silhouetted my daughter was by the sun. Also I loved that tide was erasing her footprints so that the final image looks like she is rising out of the water.

There wasn’t a lot of set-up with this shot, just having my camera with me, letting my daughter be who she is and observing how she blended in well with her surroundings. The camera details were as follows:

• Camera
Nikon D300S
• Focal Length
24 mm
• Shutter Speed
1/1250 sec.
• Aperture
10
• ISO/Film
200 Camera
Nikon D300S
• Focal Length
24 mm
• Shutter Speed
1/1250 sec.
• Aperture
10
• ISO/Film
200

Post capture I edited it in Lightroom. I chose the antique light preset and then adjusted the contrast in the sky and on the beach.

What I love about this picture is that it not only captures the absolute beauty of our surroundings but also the uninhibited joy that my daughter expresses on a daily basis.

Hope you like it.

I noticed my photography improving with the more photos I took, processed, and shared to Instagram. With this my audience grew, and I began cultivating my own micro-community within the application; encouraging users to experiment with editing tools, providing photography tips, and following mobile photographers I admired for inspiration. The Instagram team noticed my passion for their product 8 months after their launch, and invited me to join their team as the Community Evangelist, an opportunity that has allowed me to turn my passion for mobile photography into a career.

Mobile photography was never something I thought I’d defend as a legitimate medium, but I now find myself in heated discussions with friends & family about whether I am, in fact, a professional photographer simply because I utilize an iPhone as my tool. I even co-founded a one-day conference dedicated to the medium with Nate Bolt, one of my good friends and a photographer I admire. There were over 350 people who attended, clearly indicating a growing interest in mobile photography, yet many people continue to scoff at the mobile phone as a piece professional photographic equipment. Regardless of your opinions on the matter I’ve had the opportunity to see some of the most beautiful photos from around the world all taken with an iPhone, and I’ve also seen people’s passion for photography ignite and grow like mine did, as a result of Instagram.

Transamerica by Jessica Zollman - All Rights Reserved

Instagram has the ability to challenge people to look up from their phones and actually see the world around them. We’ve recently started a Weekend Hashtag Project in which I share a theme via my Instagram account at the start of each weekend with the goal of encouraging people to pay attention to their surroundings, get inspired, and get creative. If we had never started this project, I might not have captured the image above. It was a complete accident that I walked through that intersection and captured that photo. I missed my bus stop and had to walk a few blocks out of my way to get to my destination. As I started walking across that street I noticed an incredible photo opportunity emerge that was perfect for our second Weekend Hashtag Project theme, #middleoftheroad. I quickly double tapped my home button, pulled up the default Camera application, tapped to focus with one finger while another was on the shutter, then released (Fun fact: I also stopped holding my breath and worrying about get hit by that bus). I managed to capture my favorite photo of my favorite San Francisco building because I was in the wrong place at the right time.

My recent post-process routine is to bring my image into Camera+ and apply the Clarity “scene” or their HDR “effect” (They have opacity scales, so I usually bring it down to about 10 – 35%), then I bring that edited image into Filterstorm and I straighten the image (if needed), adjust the brightness/contrast, white balance and reduce noise. Finally, I bring the twice-edited image into Instagram and I typically apply one of my favorite filters, Rise. Though this sounds like a crazy process, it usually only takes me about 5 minutes to edit an image on my iPhone. While editing has the potential to improve mobile photos, the most important tip for anyone experimenting with mobile photography is to constantly have your camera phone within reach and your preferred camera application open & ready to shoot. Missing a photo opportunity because of a phone pocket/purse hunt, or waiting on an application to launch, could easily result in the loss of a beautiful capture.

Cinnabar Charm by Cody Bratt - All Rights reserved

This art van, Cinnabar Charm, belonged to the late “Container” Charlie Russell. Charlie was a resident of Slab City, California, an off the grid “no man’s land” nestled besides the Salton Sea which serves as home for a handful of rebels, drifters, scrappers and snow birds. Moving to “The Slabs,” Charlie hoped to add artists to that list. He started East Jesus, an open air sculpture garden and sustainability experiment hidden amongst the often grueling temperatures of the desert region.

Despite an over 12 hour, one-way drive from San Francisco, a handful of friends and I visited Charlie about five times over the course of a year and half. In the process, we were introduced to number of folks spread from Arizona all the way to the North West Territories. But, more importantly, shooting the sculpture garden by the full moon was always enlightening and calming.

So, when Charlie died unexpectedly last May at the age of 46, we made one final trip a couple of days later in his honor. This photo, a four minute long exposure on a Canon 5D Mark II, was made directly after we had a chocolate martini toast for Charlie out of the side of the van. For now, it may remain one of the last night photos I take in Slab City. As far as last photos go, I couldn’t hope for something more than this one.

These women were the toughest chicks I’d ever laid eyes on. Every day they hauled loads of goods (fruit, veggies, meat, household items, etc.) to their sales posts, usually all done with a small child tucked under their arm. Their skin was weathered, their hands were worn, and there was an intense history visible in their eyes. I wanted to photograph every single one of them.

The problem was, they denied my every request for a portrait. I got yelled at a couple times and even chased out of an olive-vendor’s shop. A couple women didn’t shy away, but then asked for money in exchange for a shot. The only viable option (and to keep from going broke) was to discreetly shoot from the hip. Because I was there on a video assignment, I was working with with a Canon 5D Mark II and conspicuous 24-70mm lens, so this was easier said than done.

This shot was taken near the end of my month-long trip. It took dozens of tries to get a well-exposed, well-composed and decently focused shot, but persistence paid off. I especially love the expression on her face, the variety of items surrounding her and of course, the huge knife.

Bolivia by Stacy Keck - All Rights Reserved