Holiday Perspective

Soldiers from the 341st PSYOP Co. from San Antonio, Texas visit the Fischer House at Lackland Air Force base to delivery toys and talk with children  about their jobs during Operation Toy Drop. This is the first year Operation Toy Drop will help children throughout the nation. To learn more visit www.optoydrop.net. (U.S. army photo by Staff Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres)

   If you haven't noticed it's December and that can only mean one thing! No, not Christmas. Toy Drop.

"Huh? What's Toy Drop?"

   Only the coolest thing the Army does all year; thousands of paratroopers donate thousands of toys for deserving kids. I'll refrain from comparing it to other toy collection drives; but needless to say this is pretty awesome.

"So, how do they drop the toys? And uh, why are we talking about this? This is a photography blog?"

   Well they don't drop the toys, they drop themselves, paratroopers with parachutes jump out of C-130's after donating toys. And we're talking about this because today's picture is about Toy Drop. [Assuming you read the caption...I'll wait...still waiting...oh hey there, welcome back]

   Now that I've gotten that plug out of the way, lets talk about this photo and how that has to do with perspective.

   Okay, clear subject(s) The kid and maybe the Soldier. What you probably don't know is the kid is sitting in the turret of a Humvee; the soldier down below is helping out. You don't get this shot from the ground, you can't. You have to get up high. So yes, I had to climb up on top of this Humvee to shoot the photograph. Yes, everyone thought I was crazy. I like the shot, hopefully you do too. But more to the point, I want you to start experimenting with your own perspective.

   As for the photograph itself; well the turret partially frames our subject(s) who are in points of interest. You could argue the eyes have leading lines. But really that's about it regarding this shot.

So, here's a bonus shot! Hey guess what, I had to climb up on top of a bench to get this shot. You guessed it, everyone looked at me like I was crazy.
 

One of thousands of toys donated by paratroopers for children during Operation Toy Drop 13 at at Fort Bragg, N.C.on December 9, 2010 (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres

 
   So one more thing to say about Toy drop; just because you don't live by Fort Bragg or jump out of airplanes for a living doesn't mean you can't be a part of toy drop. You can visit your local community, ...well anything really..., churches, shelters, orphanages [yes orphanages still exist] all get requests for toys during the Christmas season, you can help out and give a gift to a random child. I know I will.

   If this post inspires you to do anything, hopefully it's to give a gift to a child you've never met before, just like our Soldiers at Fort Bragg have been doing for the past 16 years.

It's all about the choices you make

Soldiers from the U.S. Army Civil Affairs & Psychological Operations Command (Airborne) prepare to conduct an night jump from Camp Mackall, N.C., on July 19, 2011 (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres)

   Did you know that at night time it's dark? Crazy right? Also, you should know that I did desaturate this image a little to help with the noise.

   Taking photographs is all about making choices. What equipment to use, where to shoot from, how long should I wait for something to happen. Do I know what's going to happen?

   In this photo I knew what was going to happen and I was aware of my surroundings.  

   I shot this with at  f/1.8 @ 1/13th of a second and 3200 ISO  from a tripod. There isn't a whole lot of blur because there wasn't a whole lot of moving going on. Well, minus the propeller on the left, but I was looking for that motion blur.

   So why did I choose those settings? Well  I went with an ISO of 3200 because that was highest my camera would go without introducing an unacceptable amount of noise. The lower settings on the other hand just wouldn't give me enough light without a huge aperture.

   I knew the CASA is built in such a way that having more than one person on the ramp at the same time is dangerous; I knew those paratroopers would be standing around not moving very much as they loaded the aircraft one by one. But they would still be moving, so I couldn't go too slow or I'd have a blurry mess but I didn't have to go very fast either.

   Because I knew the limitations of my flash [just a few feet] I knew using one wasn't an option; it was just too far and the area too large an area to light everything up properly without a ridiculous amount of lighting. 

   I could have gotten closer but then I would have needed a a wider angle lens. Problem, because I didn't have a f/1.8 wide angle lens I would have needed an even longer shutter speed and/or upped my ISO.

When it's dark I need to get the shutter speed right, when it's bright outside I need to get my aperture right, then again when it involves motion shutter again is key, do I want blur or do I want to freeze something?

   Photography is all about decision making. I like to make my decisions as soon as I get to an area. Sometimes I make bad choices and have reconsider my plan of attack. Do I mount the Flash? What's the lowest ISO I can  get? What two lenses am I going to have on my cameras [yes, I like to shoot with two cameras] Should I be shooting in shutter priority, Aperture Priority, or do I need to worry about manual settings?

I dislike manual settings, I like to let my camera do the math, I worry about the composition.

   Did I just blow your mind? A photographer who hates manual shooting? Camera's are pretty smart nowadays, they get exposure right a lot of the time. When I used an underwater disposable camera to take photos I was at the complete mercy of the camera and the exposure came out just fine. When I do use manual settings I set it and forget it. At least until lighting conditions change.

   Yes, sometimes I am forced to use manual mode because my camera isn't as smart as me, but 99% of the time it knows what to do. A camera however, cannot compose.

   And that is why when I look at a photo the first thing I look at is composition. The second, third, fourth and fifth things I look at? Also, composition. 

I make my technical choices up front so that when my eye is in the viewfinder the only choices I'm making are about my subject.

Flash motion photography

Pfc. Amber Nolan, 450th Civil Affairs Bn., rucks across Fort Meade, Md. during the 352nd best warrior competition on April 2, 2012. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres)

   Wow, it's been a busy couple of weeks for me personally. But it's time to get back on the photo bus. So lets get back to it shall we.

   I know, I know I've been extolling the virtues of flash for what seems like forever; I'll get off my flash horse after this post. I promise. [No, that's probably a lie, but I'll give it a rest for a bit!]

 

Points of interest. Check. Yellow road line leading to subject, check.
Orange/white line leading to subject, check. But those eyes, they just keep pulling me off the frame...sigh. 

   I'm not going to lie, I like this photo. It's not technically correct either, I mean, just look at those eyes pulling me off the frame. Yuck. Okay fine, clear subject, leading lines, subject is in points of interest. The exposure awesome. It's technically pretty good. Just not flawless.

   When I shot this however my concern was getting the patch included in the shot. As a public affairs soldier I was always looking to brand my images. I could go on an on about all the good stuff my unit does on a daily basis around the world, but we certainly don't have very much name brand recognition, at least not yet anyway. But lets get back to this shot.

   Unfortunately a side effect of using flash to get blur is, well, you get blur where the flash doesn't shine.

   [Bad pun. I know. I'm pretty sure you're here FOR the puns tho... right?]

   So the patch itself is a little blurrier than i would have liked it, and her eyes aren't looking over her shoulder, but that's uncontrolled action for you. Having a second flash to specifically light her her patch would have done the trick; [at least in my head it does, using just theory] as it stands there wasn't enough umph to get the black portions of the patch clear.

   

   Luckily her eyes and face are crisp and clean. The flash helped the colors [what little colors that are] on the subject really pop. And most importantly I captured motion.

   Yes, flash freezes motion [surprisingly I haven't done a post about how to use flash to freeze motion...don't worry I'll talk about some other subjects before I go back to flash] but with careful management of your shutter speed you can use it to mix and match both movement and the lack thereof. 

   What we're seeing here is 1/30 of a second [at f/22] which isn't a very long period at all, but it's twice as long as 1/60th of a second [What I normally shoot for blur free objects which are standing still] and it's glacially slow when compared to most sports shots which are shot in the high hundreds and even thousands. 

   So really, 1/30th of a second is a heck of a long time.

   Just not at night.

   In regards to light, specifically the light bouncing off our subject, the blur part you see around her is where she was at the beginning of the 1/30th [lets just call this the first half of the 1/30th of a second] and the crisp parts of here is where my flash went off, and captured her [lets call this the second half.]

   I used the "rear shutter" on my camera to ensure my flash went off at the end. This gives it some forward/upward motion. You'll have to open up your manual to find out how to make your camera use the flash on the rear shutter. If I had used the flash normally it would have given the effect of backward motion as the flash would have fired during the first half and then blur collecting during the second half; so the blur would have been in front of the crispy parts and not behind the crispy parts.

Which by the way is what happened with her sleeve. While her body was moving towards the camera her arm was going away from the camera, so the blurry part happens in the first half and the stop motion happens in the second half, causing blur in front.

Things I need: More Flash

Soldiers from the U.S Army Civil Affairs & Psychological Operations Soldiers prepare to hook up a load to a UH-0 Blackhawk during Pathfinder School at Fort Bragg N.C. on March 27, 2013. These soldiers where able to earn their Pathfinder Badge, thanks to the National Guard Warrior Training Center Mobile Training Team.

   In my dream world I'd have a big flat bed truck with a couple of spot lights and filters at my beck and call ready to provide fill light everywhere I went. Unfortunately for me, I don't have access to something like that. So, sometimes I have to use the power of Photoshop to add light.

Yes, adding light in post does in fact tear me apart inside.

   In this photo I did in fact use my flash. I channeled my inner Captain Kirk and screamed for more power, to which my flash responded, "I'm giving all she's got!"

   You can see that the flash was able to highlight the dust flying at me, but it kind of made it look like snow. It was also able to add a little bit of light to the cargo and the backs of the Soldiers. It also added a little bit of pop to those yellow strands. I would have liked this better if I had more power, because it would have brightened everything up. As it stands it's a shade dark in my opinion.

Step 1: ID Subjects Step 2: Wait for something cool 

Step 3: Press Shutter Button. Step 4: Blog about it.

   You can see that we had cloud cover, so the light was already diffused, there wasn't too much in the way of harsh shadows I really needed to fill.

   Also, the underbelly of the helicopter was dark; and even after some touch up in post is still is darker than I would have liked. But without that flat bed with spotlights there wasn't a whole lot I could have done about that. (I probably don't need a flat bed, a few well placed strobes connected via wireless would do the job as well, but that's a whole other discussion.)

   So how exactly did I find myself in this situation? Well I got a phone call from my Captain,

   "Do you want to go out and take photos tomorrow afternoon? I'm swamped, " she said.

   "Of?" I asked, knowing I didn't have much of a choice.

   "Oh, a bunch of our Soldiers are becoming Pathfinders and their going to be hooking up heavy loads to helicopters hovering over their heads?" She replied

   "Yes. Yes I do."

   I showed up expecting a wait; and wait I did. The students where learning how to communicate with the helicopter pilots and where practicing dropping supplies. Which looked cool, but it's hard to show a soldier on the ground and a helicopter a few hundred feet up in the air dropping supplies, visually it's hard to capture without a huge lens.

Note: A telephoto lens condenses space, so if you want to make it look like two things are closer than they actually are, use a telephoto lens and it'll look like they are much closer than they are.

The red arrow is where I wanted to be, on my back, with a 

super duper wide angle lens. I wanted the tips of the rotor,

the cargo and the soldier hooking up. If anyone gets this shot

after reading this and wins an award for it,  I fully expect a 

thank you card.

   Regardless, I stuck around waiting for this shot. Okay, I actually was thinking of a different shot, using a super wide lens from underneath the belly of the beast, but we didn't have a super wide. But I persisted.

   Luckily for me, this event happened about 10 times, giving me ample time to see what was happening, think about different angles, and fail a few times.

   The first time I stood back and just watched. I could see the wind from the rotors just whipping all sorts of dirt in the air. I knew from previous experiences it wasn't going to be fun. But I can't say I was entirely prepared to be just a few feet from the rotor wash.

   Lets just say, unless you're under the belly, it's not a fun time. I went out each and every time, experimenting with different angles and positions aka the 30-30 rule. I really wanted the faces of the soldiers and their unit patch because a big part of public affairs is showing off your "brand." But I realized getting everything in one shot probably wasn't going to happen. I decided the most compelling thing about this event was a 10,000 pound metal monster bearing down on a few soldiers.

So I got behind these soldiers, put them in my points of interest and just waited for the helicopter to get in my frame.

At the end of the day I can say I got a shot I liked. It wasn't the shot I wanted; I still would like to go back and try again, but I'm happy with it.

Interested in reading more about my adventures with flash? Check out: Felix and the technicolor dream coat, 

Flash, Huh, what is good for? Absolutely Everything, and Flashing at Night

Partial Framing.

A box of Christmas ornaments is partially framed by the box itself. Photo by Felix R. Fimbres

I know, You've missed your regular dosage of my blabbing on and on about a random photograph. I was a little busy, but I should be back to my regular posting! Well at least until I run out of photographs to talk about anyway. Also, I'm still waiting for a brave soul to submit a photograph...

So, in any instance I can think of off the top of my head a frame is probably going to be completely surrounding your subject(s) like this window frame, or this parachute; but you don't need to have the entire frame in your photograph.

I this example we have some Christmas ornaments framed up by the box where the spend most of year.

In my opinion, the snowman sticks out, followed by the rocking horse. why? well probably because they are in focus and each have a point of interest.

Could this photo have balance? sure, the box covers about half the frame and so do the ornaments.

But again, it's just a box of ornaments. This photo probably isn't going to win an award be displayed in the New York Metropolitan Museum of  Art, but that's okay because it at least I know some thought went into it's composition.

Balancing Act: Light v. Dark

There I was walking on a side walk and I saw this shadow. Instead of just taking any old photo I too the time to compose it. Is this going to win me an award? No. But it's certainly better than had I not taken any time to compose it. 

   It's Sunday, that means this weeks theme, balance is officially over. We talked about asymmetrical balance, finding balance, twisting balance, and almost balance.

   I found the photo above while walking along a sidewalk. I pulled out my cell phone and took the shot. It's not super fancy, it is after all just grass. But I took my time and composed it. It is, in my opinion, and pretty good photo considering it's not a particularly amazing subject. You can't always shoot pictures of things most people will never see at unique perspectives.

   I'm sure you've found yourself walking around and your eye caught something really amazing. So you pulled out your phone and pressed the button. Later you looked at it, found it unimpressive and thought, "Ugh, I'm not a good photographer," or "If only I had a really good camera."

Shadows of the grass are in my points of interest. check. This is about 50%

light 50% shade, so that's pretty well balanced. It's full of lines, I don't know

if I would consider them leading lines per say.

   Maybe the problem was that you just didn't think about what exactly you wanted to take a photo of.  Your subject, after all, is the most important consideration. With your subject in mind pick a rule and compose your photo.

Asymmetrical balance is still in fact balance, but I feel we lost our true

subject, the blades of grass, not just the shadow itself.

   So, lets take a look at this shot. what's my subject?

It's not just the shadow, it's the single blades of grass.

   It was important for me to make sure I didn't have just a big blob of shadow filling up my frame, I needed those single blades to stand out. You'll notice in the shot on the right, which was a quick crop, that my shot just isn't the same. I have shadow in my points of interest, but it's not as balanced. And in my opinion my true subject, the blades of grass, are lost.

Yes, this is just a shadow, but regardless of what you're taking a photo of, it's not excuse to not use composition.

Leading lines lite. It's Story Time.

Chief Warrant Officer Five Tom Travis exits from a UH-60 Black Hawk over St. Mere Eglise at Fort Bragg, N.C. on July 13, 2011. Travis is jumping with the U.S. Army Civil Affairs Operations Command (Airborne) who are hosting the U.K.’s 4th Parachute Regiment in a Joint training mission. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres)

   This is getting closer to what I would consider a good example of leading lines. But still not quite. The static line [the yellow cord] that connects from the helicopter to the paratroopers parachute is bright, yellow, in focus and certainly leading to the subject. But I can't honestly say I planned for it to be there. I just showed up on it's own, a product of the situation. The reason I'm pointing point this out is simply because I want to point out that leading lines are everywhere Sometimes those lines are invisible, but that's a post for another day.

   Today I want to get back into a little bit of story telling. I've spent a lot of time talking about composition and not so much time talking about the story behind those photos.

   You'll notice this is a similar perspective to my previous post (Yes, I'm afraid of heights) and in fact this shot was actually taken on the same day.

   I first want  to say that July 13th was one brutally hot day, everyone had beads of sweat rolling down thier faces. Especially  me, I'm practically a  snowman (the melting kind) I joke that I'm water cooled not air cooled because I sweat a lot during physical activity. Regardless the British had come all the way out from, well England, to conduct airborne operations so it was a great opportunity to get some joint operations photos.

   In fact, I was poised and ready to jump with them on this day. However, during final manifest [roll call] when I was asked to show my Military ID card [a required item for all airborne operations] I looked in my wallet and to my dismay found that I was missing my ID. I had left it in my card reader at home. I lived about 45 minutes away form the drop zone, so it wasn't really possible to go home and back and still be able to jump.

So, as they say in the Airborne community, I was scratched. 

   I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the biggest fan of jumping out of aircraft, and after seeing paratroopers dangling their feet from a Blackhawk prior to a jump, I can't say a helicopter would be my preferred method of insertion. A C-130 or a C-17 doesn't have nearly the view, but the skin of the aircraft acts like blinders on a horse. They help me focus on what's in front of me. Instead of, you know, thinking about my parachute not opening.

   People ask me how I can even jump out in the first place, I reply with, "It's easy, I'm supposed to be looking at the jump master until the very last second or two, by then I've got momentum and people behind me counting on me to follow through. So making those last few steps out of the door is probably the easiest part because I've already committed by then. It's those 4 second waiting for the canopy to open which are the most terrifying. Luckily for me, there isn't a whole lot I can do at that point but count."

   Anyway, back to this shot. So it's hot, I was supposed to be jumping, but I wasn't going to this day. Luckily I always keep my camera in my trunk. So, I called my supervisor to let him know I was just going to be taking pictures instead. He said great and I got to shooting.

   I had met CW5 Travis a few months earlier at Normandy and he liked my work, so when he saw me with my camera's he said, "Awesome you're taking photos today?"

   "Sure am Sir," I replied

   "Make sure you talk with the flight crew so you can go up and take pictures,"

   "Roger that Sir."

   So after a little bit of waiting the Blackhawk came in and I talked with the flight crew. They said I had one option, the crew seat. I said that would be fine. Then one of the Operations non comissioned officers came up to me as I was walking up to the Blackhawk and said,

   "Hey man, I heard you're going up?"

   "Yeah I'm in the gunner's seat"

   "Perfect, when you're strapped in you can lean way out, I've had my A** on the outside of the aircraft taking pictures, it was great!"

   "Okay, yeah, I'll try that," I replied, knowing there was no way my butt was getting anywhere near the outside of that helicopter. 

 
   So after strapping in, I thought I'd feel safe. Not really, the harnesses was tight but it's connected to a safety cable to allow for maximum mobility. The end effect is that I felt like I wasn't strapped in at all.

   I won't go too much over what I covered in Yes, I'm afraid of heights but this shot was about three things. One seeing it a few times before to get a feel for the timing and position of the subject. Two getting the widest angle I could [17mm on the lens, with crop factor a true 27mm] with my arm out as far as possible to give it a unique perspective. And three just being in a unique position to take this shot. I like to tell myself that I can make those most mundane things look amazing, but amazing things are amazing to look at.

   In retrospect this photo reminds me 1. Dummy, you forgot your ID card! 2. Sometimes when a door is closed another is opened. But most importantly 3. Always have your camera handy because you never know when a shot you take might get picked as one of the best DoD photos of the year [The main image isn't mine, it's the fourth one in the slideshow so you'll have to do some scrolling]

This is award winning?

A paratrooper removes his reserve parachute after a successful jump on to Sicily drop zone during Operation Toy Drop XII on December 7, 2009. Each year since 1998 the Fort Bragg Soldiers and Community have collected and given toys to deserving children.  (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres)

   I've been looking back through a lot of my photos and sometimes I look at something and say to myself, "Really dude? You shot this? Why didn't you use flash? Why didn't you change your angle just a bit?" in this case I say,

"Wait...I won an award for this?"

   There are a few things that could have gone very wrong with this shot. He could have been looking up and I could have gotten a great view of his nostrils. He could have been angled slightly more towards me and I could have gotten a crotch shot. Thankfully, neither of those happened. And if they did they've long been deleted.

   Okay, so lets look at this photo technically.  The subject is the paratrooper. Is he in a point of interest? Yes, but it's his leg. What else is in a point of interest? Well his parachute covers two. Is that good? Sure, why not, it's not exactly pulling away from the subject because it's not entirely in focus, and it kind of pulls your eyes towards him. If only because it's attached to him and there are some very subtle lines you can see if you look close enough. And his elbow is in the last one. His eyes provide a leading line to his action [He's removing a safety pin which will allow him to remove his parachute harness]

What else? Oh, there's a dutch angle.

   "What's a dutch angle?"

   Basically you tilt the camera. I still suggest putting your subject in two diagonal points of interest when you do this.

   The Germans and the artists say it depicts madness, unrest, exoticism, and disorientation. I'm sure someone could argue a number of points as to why this does/doesn't work for this photo. But I certainly won't. I'm not one to argue subjectivity because it's...subjective. Rules. I like to talk about rules.

   To me he looks happy.

I know for a fact he's happy because he just earned foreign jump wings and gave a child a toy for Christmas. [www.optoydrop.net]

   What in my opinion would have made this better? Well, his face could have been in the top left point of interest. Of course, how exactly that could have been accomplished is another matter altogether, moving down and to the left would have put his head higher and to the right, but then his leg and reserve parachute would have obstructed his face. [That little green thing is in fact his back up parachute. Yes, you land on your back. A friend of mine had to pull his reserve once. He hurt his back pretty bad. Luckily he's still walking around.] 

"So, could this have been shot any better?"

   I don't know, after writing this whole post about why it works technically I guess it's a pretty good shot. Maybe if you added a sunset and a whole division of paratroopers in the skies behind him with anti-aircraft going off I would have been wow'd. I guess you can't always have everything you want. Sometimes you just have to take the shot you're given.

Let's start this blog off with a Bang.

Battery Weed sends off Brig. Gen. Hugh C. Van Roosen with a roaring display of 11 cannon salutes during his change of command ceremony at Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island, New York, on June 24, 2012. Van Roosen relinquished command of the 353rd Civil Affairs Command to Brig. Gen. Daniel R. Ammerman. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres)

A little bit of luck, a little bit of patience, and a whole lot of being at the right place at the right time. This is probably my personal favorite. Could it have been better? Sure. I could have had a huge bank of lights (I had to do some fill lighting in post, I dislike doing much in post to be honest) I could have had access to a slightly wider angle lens. But I didn't have either. Sometimes you just make do with what you got.

What's funny is that I really did not want to be here. I had just gone to Africa for a quick two week trip, I shouldn't be complaining really because it was a lot of fun, but I just wanted to get home. The General's Aid came up to me and said, "We're going to take you with us to Staten Island for a change of command."

If you know anything about me as a photographer, you'd know, change of command is a dirty word.

   Don't get me wrong, they are important to commanders, and I don't blame them, however, I feel that the best stories come from our junior soldiers.

   And then I show up and three other co-workers are there. In my opinion they could have covered the story just fine without me. Again, I really shouldn't be complaining. However, I'm just letting you into my state of mind at the time.

   So, after chatting up my teammates I case the joint. I look down, I look around, I go up to the top of the Fort. I had an idea of what was going to happen. But I didn't know what exactly I was going to capture. I was picked to get the passing of the flag; for those of you non-military types, passing the flag from one commander to another symbolizes the passing of leadership.

   Okay, no big deal, it's probably my favorite part. But I really wanted those cannons. I knew I could get the shot of the flag being passed around, and get these beautiful cannons going off, I just had to figure out how. I figured I shouldn't even think about going up high, I might not make it back down in time to get the flag being passed, and if I did I'd be scurrying to get my camera settings right and that always leads to mistakes. So I set up on the ground floor.  I took a few test shots and waited.

   I tried a couple burst shots, but I was working with a Canon Rebel T2i, a couple 3 frame bursts was all that I could hope for. Luckily there was more than one cannon fire. Of the 20 or so shots I took, I missed, pretty much all of them but this one. What can i say, I was lucky.