
	Pictures of Antarctica

2 - Photography Technique - Capturing the Image - Pressing the Shutter

Fly-Cruise Locations: Antarctic Peninsula | South Georgia and South Sandwich | South Shetlands | Falklands | Leave from: NZ - Australia UK

A basic knowledge of photography is assumed,
if you are a complete beginner, you should invest in a good book to introduce you to the subject.

Practice makes perfect

Photography is a skill, like other skills such as Karate, Needlepoint, and being a Jedi Master it requires practice and hard work to get good at it. If you do get good at it you will have a valuable skill that will repay you with a wonderful record of your life and travels.

Practice before you go. You will be taking pictures of wildlife and landscapes, so practice on these if possible, pets make a good substitute for wildlife as the difference between an ok photograph and a great one is timing, position and lighting, not just subject. If you go to Antarctica and the last time you picked up a camera was the office party or your cousins wedding, then the pictures probably won't be so hot.

Look at your photos and assess them critically. Why are the good ones good? Why aren't the bad ones better, think about what you did and what you could change next time. Also, show them to some-one else and get their opinion too. I often find that the pictures that I take that I think are fantastic get a "yeah it's ok" response whereas the ones I think are just ok are the ones that get enthused about. The difficult pictures to get - that take the most effort - aren't always the best.

When practicing, limit yourself to a standard lens to begin with, you should be spending most of your brain power on getting into the right place and clicking the shutter at the right moment, not on which gadget you need.

The "Decisive Moment"

A phrase coined by the great French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson sums up what makes a great photograph. In essence it is knowing exactly when to take the photograph. You have a found a good subject and are in the perfect position, but things are changing, one moment the picture would be ok, the next, when expressions have changed - truly memorable.

Cartier-Bresson mainly photographed people and so it is easy to see his point. The same principle applies to nearly all photographs irrespective of subject. With wildlife the animal is almost constantly moving. Don't just point and shoot (despite the advertising and "ease" of use message, this only makes for quick photos, not good photos). Set yourself up, sit and watch the subject through the lens, don't just click away hoping for the best, wait for the "decisive moment", if you miss it, wait, it may happen again.

The same applies to landscapes, but this time it is the lighting that is changing. Antarctica is windy and so cloud is frequently blowing by making it sunny one minute, cloudy the next. Sunsets evolve, they build up and fade away. Waves wash over the bow of the ship or over the shallow reaches of an iceberg, whatever is happening will change the photograph. The legendary American nature photographer Ansel Adams would frequently wait for hours in one position, for the elements of sun, cloud and light to come together perfectly for the best possible picture.

"Point and Shoot" has become the name of a category of camera, it is not a instruction!
- it doesn't make for good photographs.

The ultimate photographic accessory

I don't like photographic gadgets and accessories are best kept to the absolute minimum. However, there are two accessories that are totally invaluable to the photographer and most of us are fortunate enough to already have them in full working order. They are your legs.

I have seen so many people in Antarctica and elsewhere trying to take good photographs from where they happen to be standing at the time. It is unlikely that as you come across the best photographic opportunities you will automatically be in the best position.

A good photograph is knowing where to stand.
Ansel Adams

Think about framing, what is in the background? Do you really want a picture of that Gentoo penguin and chick with some tourists in red coats behind it? You may have the most wonderful view of mountains and glacier from the ship, but do you want a radio mast towards the side of the shot? If you're photographing people do you really want to cut them off at the knees and have an expanse of sky above their heads?

Perhaps if you walked up the slope of the hill a little, you could avoid that dull expanse of featureless rock that takes up the bottom third of your picture of that dazzling iceberg off shore.

Get used to seeing everything through the lens as the finished picture and move yourself around to include or exclude elements of that picture for best effect.

Backgrounds, Sloping horizons and being on the level

One of the main reasons for producing less than wonderful pictures is that the photographer looks through the lens at the subject and disregards whatever else he or she may see. Everything you see through your viewfinder will be in the picture.

Background - What is behind your subject? Does it add to the picture or does it distract. Out of focus ice and sea behind many Antarctic wildlife shots add atmosphere, bare rocks less so, so why not move position. Are there things in the background that you don't want? If you are taking a picture of a seal, don't have a mass of penguins behind, unless that is the photo you really want to take. Decide what your subject is and take a picture of that and only that.

On a more mundane note, bits of ship, boat, tourist etc. in the background generally don't make for a good picture.

Sloping horizons. Look at the horizon, it's level, that's because we perceive it that way. Make sure any horizon in any photograph you take is horizontal, sloping drunken horizons are the tell-tale mark of a poor photographer.

You do get a second chance at fixing this with digital photography when you optimize the pictures on your computer, but it's still important as it can reduce the possibilities when cropping your photographs.

Being on the level. Not sloping horizons this time, but being at the same level as your subject. Most animals you will photograph, penguins, seals and pets are much lower than you are. Get down to their level, otherwise you get a picture that implies you are outside of their world gazing in, rather than being a part of that world. (The same applies for small children).

Exposure, snow and ice

Cameras these days come with a built in exposure meter to measure the amount of light around and to tell you how the camera recommends that you deal with it in terms of which shutter speed and aperture, or "f-stop", to use, they will also usually set these for you automatically and possibly tell you what they are doing.

Light meters work to render the scene that they are faced with as an average overall shade of grey. This is fine for the majority of scenes and the actual range of highlights and shadows mean that a light meter reading is accurate.

Many light meters however have a problem when faced with large amounts of highly reflective snow and ice. The actual reading from the meter if used directly will give a too-dark exposure. When we see snow and ice, the scene is largely white, consisting of far more highlights than shadows so we frequently need to over-expose the scene, that is to give the film more light than the light meter says that it needs. This is best done by "bracketing" exposures, take one at what the light meter is telling you and then take another at one or two stops more than this.

I was fortunate in that I discovered that the British Antarctic Survey standard issue grey moleskin trousers that I wore in Antarctica were just the right shade of grey for a perfect exposure. When faced with a tricky exposure situation I used to take a light meter reading from the standard grey shade of my leg and then ignore anything else the light meter told me. This is the equivalent of using a Kodak "grey card".