Lessons
Day 1
1Introduction
03:58 2Theme: Dogs
20:39 3Theme: Hair
18:22 4Theme: Vanishing Act
12:46 5Audience Q&A
46:34 6Extra: Art of Composition, Spring Tour 2010
02:11Day 2
Lesson Info
Spot Light
and now spotlighting, which is, you know, you don't go out from your home whether you're in Timbuktu, Eastern Europe or Australia, and just say, Oh, I'm just going to shoot spotlighting today. But I would argue that if you're aware of this type of light and you take advantage of it, then no. These are unusual situations in spotlighting generally occurs where there's a gap of light coming through. Ah, gap in trees on a ridge, through a land formation in the southwest through a gap in the clouds, Often when there's clouds and ah, blue sky, I know as the sun is moving across the sky, there's going to be shafts of light that come down through those openings, and it can reveal the land in a very special way. Which is exactly what was happening here in the northern Rockies of Alberta, as well as in the east flank of the Montana Rockies again in the rocky. So again, this is the type of predictable light. When you know you have gaps in the clouds, you just have to kind of pay attention. That's...
what's happening on Ah, this beautiful waterfall in Yosemite National Park and in these kind of cases. I'm spot reading off the highlighted land formation in this beautiful mountain in Tibet. Here, I'm intentionally overexposing that shaft of light, and I'm taking a reading off that medium. Lee lit, um wall in the lower right. That's my middle gray, my middle tone. It's not the brightest, it's not. The darkest is in between. So you get a shot like this in Antelope Canyon by taking handfuls of dust and you throw it in the air and it makes everything dusty. And that's what really highlights that chef delight. So spotlighting no unusual light. It's beautiful light se. It highlights the wave cresting in Maui or in the aerial shot over the sarin getty in Kenya or a single iceberg along an island along the Antarctic Peninsula. Unusual light. This was the cover of perhaps my favorite book called Light on the Land for uh, published about 20 years ago and in fact, for the title Light on Land. It's there's no land whatsoever in this image. It's a floating, tabular iceberg, but it was such beautiful light we have a used it on the cover. Besides the point that there was a lot of space to drop in the title. So all those air considerations beautiful, light lit situations off flamingos up in the Andes shaft of light is coming cross as its setting in just highlighting those flamingos and the rest of the land formation before and afterward remained in the shadows. Shaft of light spotlight eliminates the blow, uh, ocean spray coming from a fin whale in the sea of Cortez. So again, it's not that you can go out and predict this light. So much is about taking advantage when it reveals itself when you're out there. And so this is these are all just examples of that kind of light that I photographed over the years. Onda back let you know, spotlight coming through the largest adobe structure on Earth, which is the Grand Mosque in Djenne, a Molly. And it's a beautiful organic structure that I love. I'd love to take a workshop actually back there. A single shaft of light is eliminating a mood or a whooper swan in Hokkaido, Japan, in the winter, a deer stone in Mongolia. Now this source of light is man made were using headlamps. Teoh illuminate this beautiful element of the culture. Nobody really knows who made these dear stones or thousands of years ago. And now people believe that they are probably grave markers and that the beautiful abstract designs of that dear replicates what was tattooed on the very person that was buried. The low it. So it's interesting story and beautiful light. This is spotlighting a man holding candles in the deserts of Roger Stan India Times Uh uh, no Grand Central Station in New York City spotlighting, uh, some of the beautiful buildings in Manhattan as the sun setting over New Jersey. And then I'm under exposing it to create kind of a Gotham City. Look to it with the Crestor bill building on the left spotlight lit Mongolian step. You know where the sun is coming out on a very blustery, stormy day. This is magical light. If you could predict this sun setting over the Serengeti in ah, a mother cheetah with her four cubs are catching the last light of the sun. And just as the sun is setting over the Serengeti, one of those baby cuddles up to the mother, and moments later it's gone. But that's what I'm calling, spotlighting and dappled light coming down through a really beautiful forest in central India, capturing that one eye on that large male tiger. Very wild, very angry. I'm there. I'm on the back of an elephant. But boy, that spotlighting picks up one eye, and that is what makes the shot. I've got lots of shots of tigers over the years in their entirety in the wild and beautiful environments, but it's that one spot lit shot of that credit. You know, Big Big Male. That's my favorite of all of the shots have shot of tigers over the years.