Hands on

Images for Their Own Sake

I’m sure you’ve noticed that the subject matter of my columns plays off the specific features, capabilities and technologies of Nikon gear, most often new Nikon gear. As senior technical manager, part of my job is to highlight new products in terms of what makes them different, better or, in some cases, unique. And what better place to do that than in this magazine.

But not this time.

Frankly, I’m a little envious of the other photographers who are featured in Nikon World. Their taking-off point is photography, and their stories are driven by pictures—pictures from recent assignments or personal work or classic images, pictures that illustrate their techniques and reflect their ideas and vision. This time, that’s what I’m going to do. This is the picture-driven column, my chance to talk about photos I’m excited about that don’t necessarily have anything to do with a specific camera, lens, Speedlight, accessory or Nikon technology. No photo here was taken because I needed to illustrate, for instance, the advantages of Active D-Lighting or auto bracketing or focus tracking. I took these photos because here were subjects and situations that excited and attracted me.

But not always at first glance. I walked right past the bike on my way to a Napa Valley, California, store. No interest; no photo. But on my way back, I saw that the sun was casting shadows of the bike’s wheel. That’s pretty cool, I thought, and I took a picture. On the LCD I saw a technically okay, pretty boring shot. There was a picture here, but I needed to do something else, something different. I decided to try a technique I’d heard about from Dave Black in which he sets his white balance for a cool blue tone and takes the shot using a Speedlight fitted with a warming gel. (Coincidentally, Dave writes about that technique in his Workshop column in this issue.) I set my white balance in the 3000 Kelvin range, snapped a warming gel on my SB-900 and then employed the VAL technique to get the shot. VAL? Voice Activated Lightstand—meaning I stop a passerby and ask, “Would you hold this flash for me while I take a few photos?” The VAL kindly worked with me as I took ten shots at different flash compensation settings to see how each would affect the photo.