Tourist Photography or “How to not take craptacular photos”

Ok, so being a photographer in my off time (it’s a great destresser) in a tourist trap (second only to NYC in the US prolly) I get to see countless people taking HORRIFIC photographs. This will only increase exponentially when I hit up the inauguration next week. There will be over one million people here taking terrible photos of President-elect Obama getting sworn in. God help my sanity… Nonetheless, hopefully this will help a few of you get a couple of good photos while you’re in town.

Usually when I’m out and about and see tourists photographing other it’s so obvious from their technique that I don’t even need to see the photo to know it’s going to turn out bad. It’ll be one of the tons your kids will see once in a blue moon as they go through the heaps of photos that will inevitably be left to them when you die. They won’t be printed, framed, or even cared for because they’ll look like every other touristy photo ever taken. I’ll try to keep this obvious and simple so that though you may not be Ansel Adams, you won’t be stuck with a photo of your family as a tiny spec next to only half of the leaning tower of Pis… oh wait, that’s the Washington Monument.

People don't need to look into the lense or pose.

1.) Your flash does not matter at 30ft.
Hell, it doesn’t matter at 10ft. When you’re taking a flash photo of someone ot something, be within 3-7ft of the object. Built in flashes just aren’t that powerful and are useless further away. If anything they could either make your photo ok strange with the ground in front of you lit up brighter, or fool your camera into compensating for the natural lighting incorrectly. This means DO NOT STAND WITH AN ACRE BETWEEN YOURSELF AND YOUR KIDS AT SUNSET AND TAKE THEIR PHOTO. It also means that using flash to light up a huge scene is ludicrous. Some things you just can’t take a photo of at night w/o a tripod.
A small piece of me dies inside every time I see someone take a photo of the Washington Monument…at night….with a flash….from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial….half a mile away…

2.) Use your feet, not your zoom.
Walking up to what you’re shooting instead of using zoom will provide you with a much nicer looking photo. Zoom will kill the depth of your photo (literally) and you’ll lose some of the drama. (By the way, if Obama looks like a small dot in your viewfinder he’ll also look like a small dot in your print.)

3.) Use a delay with your tripod at night.
Many people are getting better cameras and learning how to use the very customizable options that come along with them. As such, people are experimenting more. When you use a long exposure be sure to se the camera to a delay timer. Just using a 1-2s delay will kill camera shake from your pressing the shutter. This is important for having a sharper image in the end result.

4.) Rule of Thirds.

Social Dissent in DC

This is an easy concept and very important. This can be violated in amazing photography, but for a beginner it can help improve what would normally be a crap image. No need for me to explain it, they do a great job here.

5.) Large objects should usually be far away.
Want your photo next to the Washington Monument…don’t stand next to it… Get far enough away to a where your subject and the monument are similar sizes. Also, unless you’re doing the “I’m leaning on the monument” photo from a distance, it’s probably good if your subject is leaning on a tree or looking somewhat natural with the monument as the scenery. (Sitting or leaning on a tree is also a good idea.) Just one other thing: Don’t let objects stick out of their heads (No trees, light poles, monuments, etc.).

6.) Respect the monuments and memorials.
Seriously people, have a little respect. Not to say you should enjoy your time being a tourist, but there are times for laughter and carrying on loudly, and there are places for solemn observance. Be respectful, make your parents and grandparents proud of you for once in your life (yeah, they never forgave you for dating that person back in high school and doing that thing that brought all of the embarrassment and shame to your family for generations to come…good time to try to make up for that a small bit).

7.) Don’t just rely on me. There are plenty of great tidbits to be picked up all around the web: Just try here, here, here, here, and here.

(You should note that this post isn’t so much an attempt to be the cure-all to your amateur photography woes, but more of an encouragement for you to improve your awareness in your travels via my tips and more-so via my links. Good luck! Happy shooting!)

It’s beginning to look a lot like…work…

Well, its admittedly been a bit slow here of late. I’m afraid the holidays definitely killed most of my free time over the past couple of weeks. What the hell, ya know what? I’m going to talk about something that’s always been a tradition in my family: cookies and Christmas. Sure, this was going to be about how work is back in full swing now that the holidays are nearly over, but to hell with that! Cookies taste much better than work!

Now, I grew up in a family where Christmas was a HUGE holiday. Every December mom would crank out several types of cookies: gingerbread, linzer sables, hazlenut and coconut maranges, divinity, and some hazlenut cresent cookie (the name always slips my mind). Well, last year was my first year on my own and I decided to cut some corners on Christmas spending by baking cookies for gifts. It turns out that for $200 I gave gifts to TONS of friends and family that wouldn’t have otherwise gotten gifts and still had TONS of leftovers.

Ok, so what did I make my first year out? Black forest, brown eyes susans, chai tea chewies, checkerboard, cranberry pistachio biscotti, shortbreads, lavender shortbread, linzer sables, peanut butter, molasses cringles, rangers, rugalach, windmill, and mexican wedding cake cookies. FOURTEEN different cookies, and some in multiple batches. I basically made doughs for a weekend and spend three afternoons/evenings after work baking.  Being an engineer, here’s how it went down:

1.) Create spreadsheet of all ingredients needed to make all cookies including amounts. (Note: I should have made a worksheet for each recipe, but I was a n00b. Doing so would give more flexibility to making multiples of only some types of cookies.)
2.) Purchase needed quantities of all items.
3.) Figure out how you ended up with so much extra after finishing your last dough. (“Oh, I’ll need more of this because I know I’ll make multiple batches…”)

Now my method to doughs was fairly simple, just follow the directions, scoop out on cellophane, wrap, throw in fridge, rinse bowl, repeat. You’ll get the gist of what order to throw ingredients together after a few batches and really just get into a rhythm. The only tip I have here is if you have a KitchenAid is to make sure you scrape around the middle hump in the bowl very well. The mixer blade just doesn’t reach it well.

Other tips:

• Refrigerate the doughs overnight as this gives the flour time to absorb the moisture  and really prepare the dough for baking. (This is the real secret to making chocolate chip cookies AMAZING btw.) (Also, I didn’t refrigerate the shortbreads or biscotti.)
• Use parchment paper NOT wax paper. Wax paper leaves wax on your cookies and is NOT reusable. Parchment is silicone coated (like a silpat) and reuseable. DO NOT USE COOKING SPRAY!
• Bake cookies on BACK of cookie sheet. Flip’m over and it’ll allow for much more even baking of your cookies.
• Pull parcment onto cookie racks or thickly layered towels when you pull them from the oven. This allows the cookies to not have burned bottoms and lets them cook and set-up evenly.

Ready to bake your own? It’s not difficult! Follow these steps, practice a couple of doughs, and POOF! You’ll have cookies people thought you could only get from a store! Remember, these NOTHING you can’t do in your kitchen with a bit of determination and fun!

Also, leave your fav. holiday recipe in the comments. I’d love to see what’s tradition around your house!