Marc Silber's Blog, page 13

How a National Geographic Photographer Shoots feat. Bob Holmes

Have you ever wondered what it takes to capture images for National Geographic? I had the opportunity to ask our friend Bob Holmes just that and what his approach is to making images that are worthy of National Geographic. Here’s what he said:

1. Know Your Equipment

You have to prepare yourself to accept images that give themselves to you. And you prepare yourself by knowing your equipment inside out so that the camera doesn’t get in the way. The camera’s the biggest barrier to great photographs very often, because you’re thinking too much about the equipment to concentrate on the subject. So you have to know your equipment absolutely inside out, know how it’s going to react to certain situations.

2. Develop Your Eye

You also have to develop your eye and educate your eye. And I’ve done it through a passionate interest in painting, particularly 20th century. I love the abstract expressionists for example.

3. Find Punctuation

One of the things that you need in strong composition, is some punctuation photographs often need a punctuation point. In this photo, the young boy practicing is the punctuation and, I guess you could call it a decisive moment. But it’s a moment when his attitude was good. You could read him as a ballet dancer. It’s obvious that he’s practicing a ballet stance. And those kinds of details are absolutely critical.

Photo by Bob Holmes

3. Be Responsible for Everything in the Frame

I’m able to go into a place and see photos and see images that work. I can compose things very rapidly without thinking about it. I like getting close to subjects so that you feel part of the scene. And then the composition I do almost intuitively, I’m always scanning the edges of the frame automatically because we’re responsible for everything in that frame. You know, as a photography, it’s your fault. If there’s something in there that shouldn’t be. If there’s an antenna coming out of someone’s head it’s your fault. You should have seen that. You have to be very, very aware.

Photo by Bob Holmes

4. Be Fully Involved with Your Subjects

I think the most thing after you know your camera, and have prepared yourself visually by looking at other media and other forms of visual arts that you relate to that can affect you whether you see, I think it’s very important to be fully involved with your subjects. To take your very best photographs, you have to be on your own. And you have to give the subject 100% of your concentration. You have to be there and aware of everything. And that includes when you’re looking through the camera. Even before you look through the camera, be aware, everything is going on in that image that you hoping to capture. So in this photograph, for example, the people on the bridge, these small people.

Photo by Bob Holmes

And the same as these two guys here. I moved in close. But I wanted them down here for scale to show how far they walk with these tremendous loads on their back. And by getting in low down with a wide angle lens, it gave an impression of the weight of these things coming down from the top of the frame. And that’s the kind of photograph I love. That’s what I’m always striving for.

Photo by Bob Holmes

I hope you enjoyed Bob’s wisdom on how to develop a National Geographic style, and will put it to good use. Thanks for joining us again. Please share like, and leave your comments. We really love hearing from you and until we see you again on our next show. Be sure to subscribe to our channel and our blog to stay up to date on all our content. If you’d like to get more in-depth on how to improve your photography, we have our Secrets to Amazing Photographs From the Masters course that you can take right now!

And as always, remember to get out and capture your own images of life.

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The SONY Camera Hack Nobody Told You About

This video may revolutionize what shutter speeds you use when filming. I’m Fletcher Murray. I’ve won two Emmy’s and filmed a lot of documentaries in 23 countries for ABC, Discovery, and the History Channel. We’re going to show you a SONY camera hack that gives you new creative looks you can achieve by filming at 1/10th of a second shutter speed far below the usual 1/50th. Only SONY’s mirrorless family of cameras allow you to film at one 10th of a second. Take a look:

Shooting at 1/1oth of a Second Shutter Speed

1/10th of a second shutter speed creates an illusion of speed. It adds a touch of blur to create excitement. It adds a creaminess. You don’t see at 1/50th or 1/25th of a second. It’s like painting with your sensor.

These were shot at Sony’s Be Alpha event. I was filming at 1/10th of a second handheld, about 10 feet away on a zoom lens. Look how well Sony’s in body image stabilization and autofocus performed.

So I’m moving, she’s moving. Here you see I’m filming at 1/10th of a second on a long lens and yet Sony’s in body image stabilization and autofocus nail focus, the instant the model poses. And filming handheld at 1/50th of a second, the performance is breathtaking. So still photographers don’t worry about filming off tripod. You can go handheld with confidence with Sony.

For this video the takeaways are one Sony allows you to film below a 50th of a second and to Sony’s in body image stabilization and autofocus give you amazing results even when you’re down around a 10th of a second. So filmmakers, Sony’s got your back.

We hope you enjoyed learning about this SONY camera hack, and that you’ll put it into practice. Be sure to reach out and share how you use this in your own work! Don’t hesitate to send in your questions about filming with Sony’s Alpha family of mirrorless cameras. And be sure to subscribe to our channel, and keep an eye on our blog to not miss any of our content!

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3 Hacks to Put Inspiration into Action from Keith Code

I’m going to give you the next series of creativity hacks from my new book Create: Tools from Seriously Talented People to Unleash Your Creative Life. Remember, these are tools that you can use to up your creative life. Be sure to follow along and tell your friends. We want to create a movement of people working towards increasing their creative abilities.

Today I want to talk to you about my good friend Keith Code. Keith Code is an amazingly creative person, and he’s known as the foremost teacher of motorcycle racing. He runs the California SuperBike School. At first, you may wonder “what does that have to do with creativity?” Well, Keith Code is an amazing person and a multi-talented creative in addition to being a great teacher. So I wanted to find out from him what some of his successful actions were as a creative.

Creativity Hack 1: Don’t Ignore Moments of Inspiration

This is one of the things he said in our interview. “You can’t ignore moments of clarity and inspiration. That’s the key. Those are the moments you have to grab. And they’re fleeting moments. When I do find myself involved with those moments, things open like a book.”

You know what that’s like. You have that moment of inspiration. Well, you’ve got to do something with it. I’ve told you about using your notebook and you should definitely write those things down. Those flashes that you have, that inspiration, whatever it is, but better yet use that as a propelling mechanism to go out and do that thing. So if you get this brilliant idea for a photograph, get off your butt and go take that photograph. Cameras sitting on your shelf are not taking photographs. You’re the one that’s going to press the shutter. You’re going to visualize something and get it going. So capture those fleeting moments and do something with them.

Creativity Hack 2: Put in the Seat Time

That leads to the second hack, and this is what he says. “You have to be willing to put in the seat time, time in the chair. If you’re writing something, you’ve gotta be willing to sit down and write when ‘I think I got an idea on something’ happens. In order to create, you have to be able to get it out of your head and put it down someplace on a screen or on paper. Or if you had something involving other materials, you’ve got to do something with it. You can’t find anything out unless you start to manipulate it.”

So that falls in with what I was just saying. You have to put it into action. So put the seat time. For motorcycle racer, that’s the guy sitting in their motorcycle seat. If you’re a writer, you’re sitting in the chair writing. A photographer should be out photographing or editing. A filmmaker needs to be out filming, etc. You put in time into your craft.

You need to have time in the seat to get good at your craft

We’re going to talk in a later episode about how to capture that time. Because most of us feel like we don’t have enough time. Well it turns out you do. You just need to invest it wisely. So putting in seat time, super important. We call that working your craft in the book.

Creativity Hack 3: Attention is Like Money

There is a third hack. Keith wrote this book about motorcycle racing and in it he had a section called what will it cost you? And he said, attention is like money. You just have a certain amount you can spend at any given moment. So if you imagine that you got $10 worth of attention and you’re trying to shoot a photograph and $9 of that attention is fixed on making sure you know how to use the camera, you’ve only got a buck left to use for your creative output. Bob Holmes has talked about that. That you need to know your camera so well that it doesn’t get in the way. And this is a really important creative point.

Bob Holmes explaining the importance of understanding your equipment

If you are so nervous when you’re driving that all your attention is focused on the speedometer or I shifting gears or whatever and you’re not looking at the cars around you, you’re probably going to get in a wreck. You’re certainly not going to have any fun.You don’t want to be so fixed and have your attention so stuck on your immediate surroundings that you can’t look out and enjoy what’s going on around you. So the answer to that is you’ve got to know your equipment so well that it becomes like second nature and just practice and practice and practice so that your attention is free. Then maybe you only have to spend $1 on your equipment in terms of attention. Do you follow me? And you got $9 left to spend on your creative output. That’s where you want to be.

And that’s when you look at a great artist. Just look at a Picasso,  watch Steven Spielberg, or look at a great writer like John Steinbeck. They had mastered their craft to the point where they could put their attention on telling the story that they wanted to tell. For instance, in the case of Clint Eastwood, he’s so calm on the set that it’s usually only one or two takes. That’s because he understands his equipment. He understands actors and how to let them just be themselves. He gives them the space to act and he isn’t nitpicking and allows the performance to occur. That’s a guy who has a lot of attention to spend and that’s where you want to be as a creative.

Those are today’s hacks. I hope that you find these useful in putting your inspiration into action. Be sure to get out there and work your craft. We would love to hear from you about how you use these hacks to help you on your creative journey!

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3 Creativity Hacks from Chris Burkard

I’m going to give you the next series of creativity hacks from my new book Create: Tools from Seriously Talented People to Unleash Your Creative Life.

The purpose of this series is to up your game as a creative. So if you follow along with these, you’re going to continue to expand and add to your toolkit. On a larger scale, we’d love to create a whole movement of people who want to increase their creative abilities.

Today, I’m going to cover some hacks from photographer Chris Burkard. I first interviewed him 10 years ago and he’s not only a phenomenal photographer, he’s just a great person. He’s also a really good teacher of photography and art. He mentioned a couple of things to me in my interview with him that I want to go over with you.

Photographer Chris Burkard

Creative Hack 1: Find Out What Drives Your Passion

“So I think it’s key to understand that at a certain point you have to figure out what you’re passionate about and you have to foster that. Usually that requires some introspection and some time for reflection—a spirit quest, whatever you want to call it, to understand what makes you you and what drives you.”

This is really good advice! You do need to find out what makes you passionate and what drives you. What is that thing that you want to communicate as an artist, as a photographer, and what really brings about that passion? It’s going to be different for each person and so you’ll need to reflect on what ignites that internal fire. What gets your juices flowing?

For me with Advancing Your Photography, my passion is helping you guys and connecting you with photographers you might not otherwise have that opportunity to talk with like Chris Burkard. I really do enjoy that and it’s something I’m very passionate about, which is also why I write books. I really like passing along that knowledge and that knowhow, not just my own experience, but from what I’ve gathered from other people. That’s my passion. So find that for yourself. Really settle in and discover what it is you’re most passionate about.

I love being able to connect you to photographers you might not normally talk with.

Creative Hack 2: Positivity and Your Mission Statement

That’s going to only take you so far. The next thing that he says is “Having a good routine. Surrounding yourself with positive people or influences. Identifying the positive things in your life and the negative. Fleshing out your mission statement and what it actually means to you.”

That’s a lot of stuff in there! Surrounding yourself with positive people in elements as much as you can. You know those people that you leave, or they leave you, and you feel worse. Then there’s people that you do enjoy in your surroundings that bring a positive influence. Well, obviously, you want to gravitate towards them.

Next, fleshing out your mission statement. Google uses three word mission statements. You don’t necessarily have to limit it to three words, but keep it short and to the point. For example, Advancing Your Photography is a mission statement. Advancing, meaning you’re continually moving upward. Your, because it’s about you. And obviously photography. I’m now expanding that to advancing your creativity and helping you advance as a creative. That’s my mission statement. You’ll need to work out what your own mission statement is. What is it that you’re driving towards?

Creative Hack 3: Use All Your Senses and Go Outside

The third hack Chris went over is to be sure you’re using all your senses. As he said, for thousands of years man has lived outdoors. It’s only the last century or so that we’ve tended to be more and more inside and frankly too much inside. One of the things you want to do is you do want to get out into the environment and use your senses. You want to get into an environmental situation where you go outside and you look at things and you get that spark of creativity from being around natural environments. It’s really important.

“So you need to get to a place where you’re using all those senses. You’re finding out what you’re passionate about, and that really requires you to experience new things.” Get outside, go try some new things. Chris Burkard is always traveling and doing cool stuff. Even in your own neighborhood, you can find cool things to go out and look at.

Go outside and find the opportunities you can only find if you put yourself out there.

So my friends, those are your three hacks to energize your creativity. I want you guys to work on these, and be sure to write down your thoughts in your notebooks. Write down what drives your passion and find your mission statement! Be sure to share your own mission statement as well. I’d love to hear what your mission statement is, and how these hacks help you on your creative journey.

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Unboxing and Sneak Peak of Create!

Here’s a first look at the physical version of my new book Create! I’ll give you all a look inside the box and inside the book. We’ll walk through some of the tools and interviews that are packed into the book. From interviews with Nancy Cartwright, to tools that help you find time to practice your creativity. This book has a lot to offer, and I’m excited to share it with all of you!

Don’t forget that Create comes out July 23rd and that you can get your copy today! Be sure to get the pre-order bonus for the quick start guide! And here’s a post about how you can get involved with Create’s launch if you want to help us out.

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3 Easy Hacks to Improve Your Creativity

We’re starting a new series today on my new book Create: Tools from Seriously Talented People to Unleash Your Creative Life.

We know as photographers, we’ve always got to up our game as creatives, but what about your life as a whole? Wouldn’t it be cool to link into some of these tools or hacks that you could use on an everyday basis? Well, that’s where this book is going to take you. I’m going to give you tools or hacks that I found in my own life and also from these really talented people that I’ve interviewed. If you follow this series step-by-step, you’re going to be on a road to increase your creative abilities to a whole new level. On a larger scale, we’d love to create a whole movement of people who all want to increase their creative abilities.

Today I’m going to cover three creative hacks. These happen to be some of the key points that you can put into action right now.

Creative Hack 1: Use Your Power of Visualization

Create means to envision or visualize something and then make it. So your power of visualization is the first hack. Ansel Adams said, the whole key to a photograph is your ability to visualize before pressing the shutter. That means seeing with your mind’s eye, or getting a mental image of the photo or whatever art form you’re working with. Visualization drives the entire creative process.

Visualization even drives how you envision yourself as a creative. What kind of photographer are you? What is your genre? What do you want to be known for? What is your brand? Those are all part of your visualization of yourself as an artist.

So this first hack is to remember to visualize before you press the shutter. You always visualize before you do anything as a creative, whether you’re writing a story or shooting a film, you always visualize it first. The first thing a filmmaker usually does is write an outline or a treatment – that’s your visualization. What this film is all about. Where are you going with it? Even before you write a script, you visualize the entire story.

Creative Hack 2: How to Strengthen your Visualization “Muscles.”

The next question is how do you strengthen your visualization muscles? One easy answer is go to museums and look at art – what ever kind of art that resonates with you. Bob Holmes says for him it’s modern art. He told me he’s specifically inspired by the work of Robert Motherwell. You can see an example of how this modern artist has influenced Bob’s photography.

For Joey L., his inspiration springs from the classical painters like Rembrandt: he closely observed their framing and the lighting and then he mindfully brought these elements into his own photography.

To keep feeding your creativity you need to soak in art in all forms, and you need to soak it in constantly. It’s always better to go to a museum and see art in person rather than through a screen. Books are okay, but the least preferred way of actually doing this is looking on a computer screen.  To invest forward in your creativity go see live art or listen to live music, because these can be inspirations that will pay big dividends. It doesn’t matter what art form – you’re filling your visualization library.

Creative Hack 3: Use a Notebook Daily.

Keep a notebook. Travel with it, eat with it, sleep with it. Slap into it every stray thought that flutters up into your brain. Cheap paper is less perishable than gray matter, and lead pencil markings endure Longer than memory.—Jack London

The third hack is a really simple one: use a notebook, just as Jack London recommended over a century ago. Too many things these days are done digitally, keeping us forever plugged in to electronic devices. But what’s so freeing about a notebook is you’ve got a simple record right in front of you. You can flip through it to track your “stray thoughts”

Now let’s combine all three hacks: when you go to a museum and you’re looking at art take notes of what it is that really resonates with you. Then when you go out to photography, or write or draw, look at your notes and get your visualization clearly in mind. And then create.

You can also take notes of your personal goals or what you’re trying to overcome. Then looking back later you can evaluate your progress.  Maybe you’re doing great, or maybe you need to kick yourself in the butt to get going – yep, your notebook will tell you!

So my friend, those are the three starting hacks. These are really important things that you can do on a daily basis. We’ve got a whole bunch more.

Show me some pages from your notebook, let me know how these work for you on your creative road.

Head over here to pre-order your copy of Create and get your free bonus – creativity Quick Start Guide.

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The Art of Walking – Increase Your Creativity by 60%

Join me on one of my walks through Carmel, as I talk about the value of walking and how it can improve your creative life. Steve Jobs was famous for his walk-talk meetings. Also Thomas Jefferson explains its importance, and a study conducted at Stanford University found that walking can increase your creativity by 60%!

You’ll want to add this to your creative toolkit!

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Marc’s Story

Marc’s Story

Marc Silber is the author of the number-one bestselling book Advancing Your Photography, an award-winning professional video producer, photographer, and photography educator who has been successfully working in the field for decades. Marc combines his passion for the visual art of photography with his love of life.

He started out learning darkroom skills and the basics of photography at the legendary Peninsula School in Menlo Park, CA in the ’60s, and moved on to hone his skills to professional standards at the famed San Francisco Art Institute, one of the oldest and most prestigious schools of higher education in art and photography in the United States.

Since then, Marc has been an dedicated educator; he began his teaching career at the age of nineteen at the National Outdoor Leadership School, teaching mountaineering. When teaching a life-or-death subject such as mountaineering, one learns how to make sure the students understand the material; when Marc moved into teaching photography in workshops all over the country, he became renowned as an engaging and helpful speaker and coach, as his greatest joy comes from helping others.

Marc has embraced the digital age with a highly popular YouTube show also named Advancing Your Photography, which has won several Telly Awards and other recognition for his work.

This new book on composition, The Secrets to Creating Amazing Photos, is a distillation of all the pro tips and wisdom from his YouTube series, coupled with his research of the master artists in a format you can take with you and refer to constantly when you are out creating your photographs.

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Quick Tips and Pro Help

Career Advice from Jessica Sterling

Chances are if you’re reading the words I’m typing right now, you’d like to be a photographer. Maybe even a famous one. You might even dream of it. Well, you have to start somewhere. Why not start here? Why not let this be the last video you watch before contacting that gallery, or speaking with that client who wants to work with you? Take Jessica’s (AMAZING) advice and go out there right now! Watch this quick video, then spend the rest of your day, motivated and ready to take on the entire world (or maybe just the art world).

 

Fast Lighting Tips from Fletch Murray

A lot can happen in 90 seconds. A lot can be LEARNED in 90 seconds. Now, if you look at the time stamp, you might notice this video is a little longer than 90 seconds. Well we have to intro it, right? And outros are very important to YouTube videos also. AND, we just love have Fletch on screen, sharing with us some hard earned wisdom from years spent making films. In this video, he runs us through some great but small things you can do to help to increase the quality of your photo or film shoots.

 

I’m hosting a seminar at B&H!

Next month, I’ll be hosting a FREE seminar at the B&H superstore in New York City! In it, I will discuss my new book, the Secrets To Creating Amazing Photos, and the composition tips, tricks, advice, and more I’ve learned over the years. If you’re in the city, why not stop on by?

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Green Screen and Flash Photography- New Videos!

3 Tips for a Professional Green Screen Look

I would consider this a MUST WATCH video! The easy to learn, hard to master art of green screen is used for everything from setting the background for a scene to that amazing space battle in the most recent superhero movie. But how good it looks depends on the skill of who’s using it. Luckily for us, we have Fletch Murray to show us how it’s done. In his most recent video, Fletch gives us some of his pro tips for making sure your green screen looks great.

Pretty much, it comes down to this: pay attention to details! He recommends picking your background first, before you shoot. If your background is set first, you know how to properly set up and light your scene, so it looks more natural. If you’re using your own footage for the green screen, keep the camera height, focal length, and distance exactly the same when shooting the background and the scene. You want your foreground to match the background, right? And remember, pay attention to background lights. If a car drives by on the green screen, you better recreate those headlights in your scene!

 

Simple Tips for Off-Camera Flash

If you’re like many fledgling photographers, you may have never used an off-camera flash before, or are just getting into them. As Jessica Sterling has discussed before, flash can be intimidating. Off-camera? Even more so! At least Jess has a few tips to help you get more comfortable. She recommends using radio transmitters for her flash. They’re very reliable, and some even come with another hot shoe for the camera. This allows you to use an off-camera flash and a regular one at the same time, for multiple angles of light! Another tip? Get good at eyeballing distances. You need to know how bright the flash will be, and how much it’ll light up your shot.

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