I was lucky enough to be invited to shadow the lead penguin biologist at the California Academy of Sciences and photograph the African penguins. I was looking to get specific behavior for an article -- I wanted to see the loving side of the birds and get bonding and nesting behaviors. Well, I failed miserably at that as I was shadowing the biologist during feeding time. But I did learn a lot on the technical side of getting shots of black and white animals in a tough lighting situation without completely blowing the exposure.

One of the big challenges was the environment the penguins call home -- it's a dome with bright lights up above to act like daylight and a dark pool of water below that doesn't have lighting. It creates quite a contrast when trying to get the exposure right. The second big challenge is the simple fact that the animals are black and white. Trying to get a proper exposure for a penguin's eyes often meant getting blown highlights on the sides of its head or neck. What I ended up doing was taking a few shots on aperture priority, checking my settings, then switching to manual to make sure my shutter speed was fast enough the highlights could be spared. Luckily, I was able to salvage a lot in post-processing with recovering highlights and brightening the shadows to balance things out.

I've got to say that it was really amazing to be inside the exhibit. About a year and some months ago I had photographed the penguins during feeding time but from outside the exhibit. Not having glass between you and your subject is (usually) always a wonderful thing -- you can see the difference in shots of feeding time below. Plus, it felt pretty amazing to be in there with those adorable birds, standing a foot away from members of an endangered species while they watched me and brunched on fish.

Right after getting home from a long week of working covering a conference, we all hopped in a car and went to the beach. I debated taking the camera at all, wanting to just hang out with my family and enjoy the afternoon, but it's hard not to take a camera with you when you know you're going to be where dozens and dozens of dogs are playing. So I brought the camera but I decided that to make things easier on my tired self, I wasn't going to try. I was going to take shots with some "can't miss" settings and just have fun. There's two distinct pros, and one major con.

The first pro is the simple fact that there is zero personal pressure placed on getting cool shots. There's no "I already have shots like that so I've gotta be more creative," or "I am not getting the lighting I want this way so we should go down the beach that way." It's great not to feel that and just be silly with the camera. The second pro is that I don't know what I got until I get home. So it's kinda like opening a birthday present. I'm happily surprised at what lucky shots I did get, and undisturbed by the junk shots which of course is the majority.

The major con, however, is that I'm not learning anything. I'm not pushing myself to figure out what's going wrong and fix it, or to get more interesting and creative with what I'm capturing. Without putting some pressure on yourself to really try, there's really no educational opportunities and that's a bummer especially when there's so much to learn.

So it's probably time I start putting the effort into trying again, into pushing myself to learn and get better. But I will report, the afternoon was a lot of fun. More photos are available on my Flickr account.

Sometimes it feels like using Instagram is cheating on my camera. Why not take a "real" picture with a "real" camera and process it with "real" software? The short answer is, becasue Instagram is easier, and sometimes taking a photo is less important than capturing a momentary scene, really quickly and without disturbing it, then enjoying said scene sans camera. It might feel like cheating a little, but it makes life more enjoyable. For instance, take standing at a train platform:

I had bags in one hand and a ticket and iPhone in the other and we were about to go through the door to board, but dang the way that the light patterns were making the floor a grid, with the guy's reflective bag mirroring it was too much to pass up. There's no way I'd have time to get out my camera without the moment changing. But the iPhone was there. And so was Instagram, and voila! Something interesting, that is almost as much a surprise to me as anyone else since I didn't put effort into capturing and processing it. And, I boarded the train without being all stressed out that I was leaving something behind or droppign anything.

There's also the lovely ability of being sly. There's always someone using their iPhone at a bus stop. No one really pays attention to that. They pay attention to a camera aimed directly at them from four feet away. But not an iPhone aimed directly at them. So you can get some spontaneous and lovely street photos:

And then there's spur of the moment captures with family and friends. "Oh wait, lemme get a photo" works a lot better when the person doesn't have to wait for you to get your camera, turn it on, check the settings, aim, focus, fire. They're a lot more joyful about being captured if it happens in about .5 seconds, which is possible with an iPhone. And a quick filter from Instagram turns it into something fun:

That goes for delicate moments, too, when you know it's not possible to get your camera without ruining it:

But mostly, I love Instagram because it satisfies both the photographer part of me as well as the enjoy-this-time part of me. I can capture that incredible sunset, make it look rad in Instagram, and share it with friends in under a minute. Then I can enjoy said sunset until it fades to dark...

Yesterday I decided I was tired of control. I put my camera on Av, set it at f4.5, put the lens on manual focus and at a focusing distance of five feet. And just clicked when I saw anything that seemed interesting in color, shape, form, anything. It was more a game of What Would This Look Like Cross-Eyed (or Nearsighted).

You can check out more images from the experiment on Flickr.

Um.. where's your face, Dutch?

So I was trying to practice shooting from the hip while on a walk yesterday -- something I really suck at. I always think I'm aiming the camera in the right spot but I never am, or if I get the subject in the view then they're out of focus. Yesterday my girlfriend and I were on a walk when I saw a woman with a couple dogs and I thought they'd be a perfect practice shot. I dropped my camera down to my side and tried to photograph one of the dogs as we crossed the street. I looked at the screen -- rats... just a blurry dalmation head and an in-focus car off in the distance.

I turned to my gf and said, "I really should just quit trying to do this," and right when I finished my sentence I heard the woman walking the dogs say, "Are you trying to shoot from the hip with my dogs?"

Caught! I turned around and said, "Well, I'm trying but it's really not working." I held up the camera in an offer to show the images, just to kinda prove I'm not a creeper. She was smiling (thankfully because some people aren't necessarily thrilled when they catch you trying to take their photo) and she gave me a serious surprise by saying, "Do you want to try it again? I'm a photographer too and I shoot from the hip a lot."

My gf just started cracking up, but I got excited. How randomly wonderful that the person whose dog I was trying to sneakily photograph a) caught me and b) wants to give me pointers about doing it better!

The woman's name is Amanda Bradshaw and she is a dog photographer. You can tell by her work on Frolic Photography that she is extraordinarily good at what she does. She's also really great at giving pointers on shooting from the hip. First, I had my settings all wrong -- I was using settings that are great for aiming at something, but not great for trying to capture whatever lands in front of the camera at a moment's notice. I also had a 50mm lens on which happened to be on the camera when I left the apartment for my walk, and she noted that switching to my 17-55mm lens would give me a much higher success rate.

It was a great, odd experience and I couldn't be happier that someone called me out on shooting from the hip. Not only is Amanda's attitude inspiring -- she actually ditched the person she was talking to on her cell phone to stop and give me pointers -- but so too is her dog photography. Looking through her website shows me how much I have to learn in my own dog photography, and it got me excited both to practice more with dogs. And of course, she also inspired me to keep chugging along at practicing shooting from the hip.

A neighbor in the next building has set up a finch feeder, and while they get the best views of these flitty creatures, a few of them have taken to landing on my fire escape and collecting seeds from my potted plants (which I've sadly neglected). There are a couple females, and one male with vivid red feathers. They're just full of personality and gusto, and have been a lot of fun to watch. View a few more photos of these adorable finches on my Flickr stream.