Photojournalism (34): Using your flash

Without light, photography is not possible

Remember what the poet Francis Bourdillon said? “The night has a thousand eyes and the day but one. Yet the light of the whole world dies when the day is done.” I don’t know if Bourdillon ever tried photography, but these lines underscore our heavy reliance on the sun, on sunlight, in order for us to take pictures. Remember that without light, photography is not possible. There are instances, however, when we have to use artificial light sources in order to take pictures, like when we’re shooting indoors, in overcast sky, early morning, late afternoon, evening ...

Free PDF resources on fill flash

Flash Part 2: Fill Flash by Stephenson and Whittle

Sony lighting guide (fill flash discussion on p. 10)

Fill Flash by Mark Greenland

Daylight Fill in Flash by Rick Sammon

Fill Flash cheat sheet

Electronic flash

The most common form of artificial lighting for photography (whether digital or film-based) is electronic flash. An electronic flash has a glass tube filled with a rare gas called Xenon (atomic number 54, atomic weight 131.30; the sole source is the atmosphere which constitutes 1 part in 20 million). The flash is powered by a battery-fed capacitor. When you switch your flash on, you’ll hear the high pitched sound of the capacitor turning battery power into AC (alternating current).

After storing energy, the capacitor releases it to the tube to create the flash of light whose duration is often faster than 1/1000 of a second. This is actually your effective shutter speed. We will study shutter speeds later on; for now, if you’re using a manual SLR camera, you have to set your shutter speed dial to your “x-synch” which may be 1/60, 1/90/ 1/125 or 1/250 sec. The “x-synch” is the speed you have to set when using your flash. This speed is sometimes marked on your shutter speed dial by a lightning bolt symbol. In some camera models, this number (a fraction actually) is marked by a different color.

If you’re using an automatic, point and shoot camera (whether digital or film-based), you don’t have anything to worry about. The camera will do everything for you, except buy pizza for you …

Problems when using flash


1. Harsh shadows

Perhaps the most negative aspect of using flash is the harsh shadows created behind your subjects, like in picture above where the shadows of Gracie (my student in Rizal High School in the 1990’s) and the microphone are clearly visible on the background. These shadows oftentimes destroy the mood of a picture.

Solutions? One, you can choose a different viewpoint like what I did in the 2nd picture above. By moving to the left, I got a darker toned background that absorbed the shadows. Two, you can adopt a high point of view. In this situation, the shadows will be hidden behind your subject. Three, if you can afford it, buy a ring flash; this flash creates no shadows.

2. Foreground object casts shadows on the subject

This is the classic booboo when using flash. A foreground object (in the picture above, the student on the left hand side) receives too much light, and casts shadows on the main subject, the guys in the background. Solution? Fill the frame with your subject and choose your viewpoint carefully.

3. Automatic flash can be fooled or thrown off by the overall brightness of the scene

When your subject has light toned surroundings or elements, like in the picture above where the shy student says “Hello!” from behind some graduation togas, your automatic flash can be fooled or thrown off by the overall brightness of the scene. The result? Your subject comes out underexposed or too dark, while the surroundings turn out properly exposed. Solution? Set your flash on manual, measure the distance between you and the subject, and then set the appropriate aperture.

4. Flash fall-off

 
When subjects are located at different distances from the camera, they won’t receive the same amount of illumination from your flash. In the picture above, the girl on the extreme right (Miss Rizal High 1992), in the foreground, gets the right amount of light. The girl on the extreme left (Miss Freshman 1992), on the left hand side, is farthest from the camera, so she receives a lesser amount of light and thus her image turns out darker. The technical reason for flash fall off is the so-called “inverse square law” but hey, I don’t want to bore you with another math-related topic! Just make sure your subjects are located at the same distance from the camera by choosing the right viewpoint, okay?

5. Hot spots

When your subject’s background or any element in the subject is a reflective, polished surface like mirrors, glass doors, chrome finished exteriors, etc. your flash will create harsh reflections known as hot spots, like in the picture above of the student playing the role of the Tin Man from “Alice in Wonderland.” One solution can be to choose the right viewpoint so as to possibly minimize the size of the hot spot. While generally regarded as liabilities, hot spots however may be used creatively.

In the pictures above, the hot spots are in my student’s eyeglasses. In the right hand picture, I got a better portrait without the eyeglasses and without the hot spots. (Remember our lesson in shooting portraits? When shooting your subject’s face with one or both of her hands included in the picture, don’t show the back of the hand. Position the hand so that only the side is shown, as in the right hand picture above shows. This creates a slimmer line, unlike when the back of the hand is shown.)
 
6. The problem of red eye

“Red eye” occurs when the flash is located too near the lens. Red circular spots are created in the pupils of your subject’s eyes. Most 35 mm compact cameras (whether digital or film-based) have flash that’s designed to reduce red eye. If your camera flash doesn’t have this red-eye reduction feature, ask your subject to look closely at lamps or light bulbs before you take the shots. Also, you can use pentel pens to “retouch” your pictures or erase the red eyes. As you can see by now, red eye isn’t a problem if you’re using black and white film (please refer to our previous lesson on shooting color or black and white).

7. Creating a gentler, kinder light

You can create a kinder, gentler light falling on your subject by bouncing the flash off a low, gray or white colored ceiling. Or you can do it the way professionals do it. You can attach a white index card to your flash, fold it and bounce your flash off that card. If you’re using a manual flash, you have to open up your lens by one or two stops (more on this topic later on, okay?). If you’re using an automatic or dedicated flash, there’s no need to adjust your aperture.

Never use a shutter speed faster than your x-synch

DSLR cameras have “high speed synch” that allows the use of flash at any shutter speed.

If you’re using a film-based manual SLR, never use a shutter speed faster than your x-synch! If you do, half of the frame will be totally dark, devoid of any image. But you can use a speed slower than the x-synch if you need more illumination for your subject. Some camera models (like the classic Olympus OM-4, and those cameras employing leaf shutters) offer what is known as “perfect synch” which means that you can use your flash at any shutter speed.

The burst of light produced by the flash is similar in color with daylight. Electronic flash is “balanced” to give the same quality of light as the average noon daylight which measures about 5400 Kelvins in the color temperature scale.


Setting up a hot shoe mounted flash

Besides the built-in flash, the flash unit you’re probably most familiar with is the one where you have to place it on top of the camera’s pentaprism, inserting it into what is known as the hot shoe, and depending on the model, locking it into place. The picture above of my beloved Canon AE-1 camera shows this kind of a flash unit.

1. Install the batteries, observing the correct positive/negative placements. Batteries may either be conventional batteries or rechargeable nickel-cadmium (Nicad) batteries. You can save money using Nicads but take care charging these batteries. You’ll notice that flash with ordinary batteries take longer to recycle as the batteries lose their power; Nicads always have a constant recycling time, up to the time they totally lose power.

2. Switch the flash unit on; if the batteries are installed properly, you’ll hear a high pitched sound created by the oscillator turning DC power to AC. The sound is cut off when the ready light goes on. To be sure that the flash is working properly, press the test button.

3. If you haven’t done so yet, slide the flash unit into your camera’s flash accessory shoe (“hot shoe”). Some units have a lock on screw which prevents the flash from falling off. Depending on the model, the flash has one or more contact points which connect to the camera’s flash circuitry. Other flash units need to be connected through a cord to the camera’s PC or co-axial socket.

Manual flash exposure

We will be talking about exposure or setting the correct shutter speed and lens opening combination in detail later on, okay?

1. The flash unit has an ISO scale; set it according to the film’s ISO rating (unless of course, if you’re pushing or pulling your film). Set your shutter speed dial to the x-synch.

With the advent of digital photography, most amateur photographers no longer have to learn or deal with ISO ratings. ISO stands for International Standards Organization and films are classified as ISO 100, 200 or 400 and so on. The higher the ISO rating, the more sensitive it is to light. ISO 100 film is the ordinary kind of film that’s given to you at the store if you don’t specify what kind of film you want. Before I started using a borrowed digital camera, I preferred using Kodak Max (an ISO 400 film).

With digital cameras, you can also adjust the camera to an ISO 400 rating. This means that you can take pictures even in low light situations even without using your flash. The downside however (I stand to be corrected on this, okay?) is that each picture will take up more memory and you will have lesser number of shots available.

2. Focus on your subject, and then read the distance between you and the subject as indicated on the distance scale of the lens. The scale is calibrated both for meters and feet; use whatever measuring system you’re most comfortable with.

3. On the flash unit’s exposure calculator, locate the flash to subject distance which you determined in Step 2. Opposite or below that number is the correct f/stop or lens opening to use. Set the aperture ring of your lens to this f-stop. Notice that on the exposure calculator, as the subject becomes progressively farther away from the camera, the larger the aperture or lens opening becomes. We will learn more about f/stops or lens openings later on, okay?

Using the guide number to determine what lens opening to use

Instead of using the exposure calculator of the flash, you can also determine which f-stop to use through the flash unit’s guide number. The guide number is a measurement either in feet or meters of the flash unit’s power, as provided by the flash manufacturer. There is a different guide number for each film speed but generally, guide numbers are provided for ISO 100 film.

How do you know what’s the GN for your flash? Look for it in the instruction guide, or simply set your flash to ISO 100. Multiply any distance with the corresponding aperture and you’ll get the guide number. Remember that the higher the guide number, the more powerful the flash is (the more expensive the flash unit is too). The classic Vivitar 283 flash, a favorite among professional photographers even today, has a guide number of 120 feet.

How do you use the guide number? Divide the flash-to-subject distance into the GN and the result is the correct f-stop to use. For example, with a guide number of 16, the correct f-stop to use is f/8 if the flash-to-subject distance is 2 meters. Why? 16 divided by 2 equals 8, right? I knew that! Hey, I checked my calculator, and it gives the same result!

Automatic flash

With manual flash units, you have to change the aperture setting on the lens every time the flash-to-subject distance changes. Automatic flash units (whether for digital or film-based cameras) however, adjust the power or the duration of the flash to suit whatever this distance may be. They have a sensor on their front portion that measures the amount of light falling on the subject, and controls the duration of the flash depending on how close or how far the subject is. The sensor switches off the flash when the right amount of light has covered the subject. (Further on in this article, we will discuss problems in using automatic flash with light-toned surroundings.)

Dedicated flash

Dedicated flash units are designed to work exclusively for one specific camera model or models in a series. Through the contact points in the bottom of the flash unit, they automate a lot of flash functions like setting the ISO rating on the flash, and the camera shutter to the flash synchronization speed. They also give a flash-ready signal in the viewfinder so you won’t have to turn your eyes away from the camera in order to look at the flash unit. While the dedicated flash is recycling, it turns the camera back to available light measurement.

The most sophisticated dedicated flash units are capable of OTF (off the film) metering, that is, they measure the light hitting the film during exposure. This system makes flash photography simpler and almost foolproof. These flash units can also take into account the ambient light (“existing light”) for hassle-free fill flash photography. (All these years shooting pictures, I never could understand fill-flash ratios!)

Salgado (world's best photojournalist) and flash

Sebastiaŏ Salgado is considered as the best photojournalist in the world today. He comes from an affluent Brazilian family and has taken up graduate studies in economics in France. Yet, his pictures have always been of struggling workers, the powerless and the dispossessed. He didn’t have any interest in photography until his wife, an architect, gave him a camera as a gift. The very first time he looked through the viewfinder, he was hooked on photography. Know what? Salgado doesn’t use flash when shooting his pictures, relying only on available light. That does it! First thing tomorrow, I’m going to throw away my flash!

Photojournalism (33): Photo essays using the chronological approach

Update as of September 18, 2023: If you’re a high school or grade school student in the Philippines who’s joining the photojournalism contest in the division, regional, or national press conference, I’m offering two free resources to you : A. 900-plus interactive exercises on English grammar, vocabulary, reading comprehension, verbal analogy, etc (with around 200 megabytes total file size). The exercises have time limit and automatic scoring, with an average of 10 items per exercise. Examples of these interactive exercises are: Common English grammar errors: Exercise 01 (nouns - confusions of number); Phrasal Verbs: Expressions with Go; English Placement Test (45 items). B. 200-plus resources (JPG, PDF, MP4, etc.) on photography and photojournalism, with 600-plus megabytes total file size. For some examples of these resources, surf to the “Free photography e-books, cheat sheets” page. For the download links and more information about how to use the interactive exercises, please surf to my “Better English resources and exercises” blog. Please inform your journalism teacher/schoolpaper adviser or your parents about these resources before downloading them. If you have any question about downloading or using these free resources, please email me (after informing your journalism teacher/schoolpaper adviser or your parents). I’ll be able to reply to you within two to three days; if you don’t see my reply in your Inbox, check your Spam folder. Or, you can text me. Also, if you win in the photojournalism contest at whatever level (district, division, regional, or national), you can send me your prizewinning pictures, and I will feature them in a blog post. Atty. Gerry T. Galacio gtgalacio@yahoo.com 0927-798-3138

Examples of photo essays: Trouble Shared (Brenda Ann Kennelly/ New York Times/Lens); A Country Doctor (W. Eugene Smith/Magnum for Life); A Young Father’s Balancing Act (Benjamin Norman/The New York Times); New York City Coffeehouse (Dima Gavrysh/Lens); Where Beauty Softens Your Grief (Gianni Cipriano/ICP); Gun Nation (Zed Nelson); What the World Eats (Time); Last Supper (2004; Celia A. Shapiro/Mother Jones); The Bitter Sweet Pill – GMB Akash; Happy Horsemeat (Alex Soth) Unusual photo essays: February Assignment: Photographing Pictures in Reflection; Magic in the Nearly Forgotten Mailbox; Andrew Moore Detroit; Superheroes – Dulce Pinzon; A Photo Fright Most Viral; Jump Book – Phillippe Halsman Relevant article: “Week Five_The Photo Essay” from CUNY Graduate School of Journalism (topics include kinds of shots like signature shot, process, interaction, clincher, etc., and how to structure your narrative)

In using the chronological approach, you follow as events unfold before you, and you shoot your subject over a period of time. A simple example of a photo essay is that of the two pictures below where a little lamb makes friends with the freshmen and then finally gets the limelight as it performs on stage. Baa! Baa!


In the photo essay below, I shot a high school student writing the names of his friends on the hollow blocks. (Please take note of the bust of Dr. Jose Rizal on the background of the first picture.) He was only using a piece of chalk, and so I didn’t scold him. He didn’t see me shooting him while he was writing on the hollow blocks. Later on, after he left, I got a medium shot of the letters he wrote on the blocks. As a final shot, using the vertical format, I shot the letters on the blocks, with a group of students walking away on the background.




Sequence shots can be a chronological photo essay

In the pictures below, I asked my Class 1990 yearbook staffer Eric to pose by the dike at the back of Rizal High School in Pasig. I was on the 3rd floor of a building with my beloved Canon AE-1 Program camera fitted with a Vivitar Series 1 70-210 mm lens. (Believe it or not, I bought this 2nd hand zoom lens in a barbershop in Blumentritt, Manila.)  

I wanted to express the contemplative mood and loneliness a senior normally goes through as graduation time comes near. I just wanted two elements in my picture - Eric and the still waters of the Marikina River flowing behind the Rizal High School campus in Pasig. The first two pictures of the scene below were the ones I needed to express what I wanted.

But then, I saw the tugboat coming from the left. I switched on the power winder of my camera. I shot about 20 frames all in all as the tugboat passed Eric and created ripples on the water. Serendipity! I had a photo essay which could be used to illustrate life cycles, transient moments, peace and serenity, consequences and change!
 
(If you mouse over the pictures, the captions will appear for about five seconds. If you continue to move your mouse over the picture, the caption will stay visible.)














Pssst, Eric! It has been sixteen years since 1990 when I asked you to pose by the dike. You can move away from the dike now, and go on with your life, okay?

Apollo Moon Documentary Bears Witness
for a Creator

By Mark Ellis, Senior Correspondent, ASSIST News Service

LONDON (ANS) -- A film documenting the Apollo moon project using rare footage from NASA contains numerous spiritual references pointing to the existence of God.

“In the Shadow of the Moon” opened September 7th to positive reviews, including a “Critic’s Choice” designation by the L.A. Times and an award at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.

“It’s a film about the experience of going to the moon told by the people who went – in their own words,” says David Sington, who directed the film. One of Sington’s associates got acquainted with Dave Scott, commander of Apollo 15 and the first man to drive on the moon. “They wanted to organize a reunion of moonwalkers,” Sington says. “That grew into an idea of doing a reunion on film.”

Producer Duncan Copp proposed the idea of a documentary to Sington, who said it took him only 15 milliseconds to decide on the project.

With astronaut Scott’s help, the film team managed to assemble crewmembers from every Apollo mission that flew to the moon and interview them directly on camera. The 10 astronauts – now in their seventies – come across as surprisingly reflective and human. Many spoke of the profound impression they gained from walking on the lunar surface and gazing back at a marble-sized planet Earth.

In addition to the interviews, producers Duncan Copp and Chris Riley spent weeks at NASA’s film library in Houston pouring through cans of film – many of which had not be opened for 30 years. They uncovered a veritable treasure trove, which the filmmakers re-mastered to produce a film of striking visual clarity.

Apollo 16 astronaut Charlie Duke, the 10th man to walk on the moon, makes an explicit declaration of his faith in Jesus Christ on camera. His spiritual revelation came after his retirement from the space program in the mid-seventies. Mounting pressures in business and his personal life caused Duke to grapple with life’s ultimate questions. In 1978, after he attended a Bible Study about Middle East prophecy, Duke realized Jesus “really is the Son of God.”

Astronauts Edgar Mitchell and Gene Cernan described profound spiritual experiences, but not within a specific Christian context. Cernan discovered the universe seemed to have purpose behind it, that there must be a Creator who stands above the religions of mankind.

“Edgar Mitchell’s experience profoundly changed and shaped his whole life,” notes director Sington. “He had a moment of epiphany – suddenly grasping who he is in relation to the universe. This was accompanied by a sense of ecstasy, almost like people who have had visions of the Virgin Mary.”

“He’s striving to understand his spiritual epiphany in scientific terms,” Sington adds. “He’s dedicated his life to understanding human sub consciousness and to finding the ‘Great Mind’ of the universe.”

Unfortunately, the man who had the closest encounter with Jesus Christ on the moon does not appear in the film. “Sadly enough, the person who had the most profound spiritual experience was Jim Irwin, who died,” says Sington. “He really had a ‘road to Damascus’ experience on the moon.” Irwin died in 1991 from a heart attack.

In Irwin’s book, “To Rule the Night,”he described his view of Earth from the moon, which looked like “a beautiful, fragile Christmas tree ornament hanging against the blackness of space.” The beauty of the mountains of the moon moved Irwin, and he said he felt the presence of God during his moonwalk. “The moon has a powerful force; it seems to affect the feelings and the behavior of everybody. I cannot imagine a holier place,” he wrote.

Some would consider the trip to the moon as one of man’s greatest accomplishments, but Irwin had a different perspective. Afterward, he frequently said, “I believe Jesus Christ walking on the earth is more important than man walking on the moon.”

Irwin retired from NASA in 1972 and founded High Flight, a Christian ministry. He traveled frequently and spoke to groups about the ways his experiences in space increased his awareness of the presence of God.

“My view is that all of them were profoundly affected by the experience of leaving the Earth and seeing the Earth in its true context,” Sington says. “The photographs they took were a revelation to everybody that helped shape the way we think of ourselves on the Earth,” he notes.

Some might consider the awareness gained by the men who walked on the moon as the ultimate mountaintop experience. “They had the experience firsthand, which is a different order of experience.”

Many of the astronauts saw the universe as fundamentally sterile, a seemingly endless dead expanse. By contrast, Earth appeared to be a very special oasis -- almost Edenic, and yet fragile. For some, this increased their environmental awareness, as well as a sense of gratitude about living on planet Earth. “They feel life in a slightly stronger way than the rest of us,” Sington observes.

Apollo 11 astronaut Mike Collins, the most affable of the astronauts to appear on camera, described a moment of exaltation in his orbiter as he realized he was alive in a place where there was no other life.

One of director Sington’s disappointments was his inability to persuade Neil Armstrong to abandon his notoriously reclusive nature and appear in the film. “I think I understand why he doesn’t want to talk about being on the moon,” Sington says. “He sees himself as a messenger, not the message, a representative of all of us. He takes that very seriously.”

Sington came away from the film more inclined to accept a spiritual dimension to life. It also made him a bit more optimistic about the future, based on the Apollo project’s demonstration that human societies – particularly democracies -- are capable of large-scale collective efforts apart from waging war.

“In some sense perceiving reality is spirituality,” Sington concludes. “Religion and Christianity says we’re missing what’s really important,” he says. “When you see things as they really are you get a more profound spiritual sense.”

“In the Shadow of the Moon” is rated PG for mild language, brief violent images, and incidental smoking.

[ASSIST News Service, PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609-0609 USA; Visit ANS website at: http://www.assistnews.net/ -- E-mail: assistnews@aol.com]

P.S. You might also want to play this Flash movie "God of Wonders" by Tim Gibson. My personal preference is still the traditional hymns but Gibson's movie is quite appropriate after you have read Mark Ellis' article posted above.

Photojournalism (32): Photo essays and themes

Update as of September 18, 2023: If you’re a high school or grade school student in the Philippines who’s joining the photojournalism contest in the division, regional, or national press conference, I’m offering two free resources to you : A. 900-plus interactive exercises on English grammar, vocabulary, reading comprehension, verbal analogy, etc (with around 200 megabytes total file size). The exercises have time limit and automatic scoring, with an average of 10 items per exercise. Examples of these interactive exercises are: Common English grammar errors: Exercise 01 (nouns - confusions of number); Phrasal Verbs: Expressions with Go; English Placement Test (45 items). B. 200-plus resources (JPG, PDF, MP4, etc.) on photography and photojournalism, with 600-plus megabytes total file size. For some examples of these resources, surf to the “Free photography e-books, cheat sheets” page. For the download links and more information about how to use the interactive exercises, please surf to my “Better English resources and exercises” blog. Please inform your journalism teacher/schoolpaper adviser or your parents about these resources before downloading them. If you have any question about downloading or using these free resources, please email me (after informing your journalism teacher/schoolpaper adviser or your parents). I’ll be able to reply to you within two to three days; if you don’t see my reply in your Inbox, check your Spam folder. Or, you can text me. Also, if you win in the photojournalism contest at whatever level (district, division, regional, or national), you can send me your prizewinning pictures, and I will feature them in a blog post. Atty. Gerry T. Galacio gtgalacio@yahoo.com 0927-798-3138

Examples of photo essays: Trouble Shared (Brenda Ann Kennelly/ New York Times/Lens); A Country Doctor (W. Eugene Smith/Magnum for Life); A Young Father’s Balancing Act (Benjamin Norman/The New York Times); New York City Coffeehouse (Dima Gavrysh/Lens); Where Beauty Softens Your Grief (Gianni Cipriano/ICP); Gun Nation (Zed Nelson); What the World Eats (Time); Last Supper (2004; Celia A. Shapiro/Mother Jones); The Bitter Sweet Pill – GMB Akash; Happy Horsemeat (Alex Soth) Unusual photo essays: February Assignment: Photographing Pictures in Reflection; Magic in the Nearly Forgotten Mailbox; Andrew Moore Detroit; Dulce Pinzon (The real story of the Superheroes; A Photo Fright Most Viral; Jump Book – Phillippe Halsman

One way of teaching yourself to be more selective in your shots is to do a photo essay. Unlike indiscriminate shooting of subjects (or even a photo sequence), a photo essay requires planning: what to shoot, how to best shoot it, how this picture contributes to the essay, etc.

Limiting the topic for your photo essay

We’re all familiar with writing essays or themes for our English or Filipino subjects. What do teachers emphasize before you write out that essay? Limit your topic. The same advice holds true for a photo essay:

1. Decide first what your general topic or your subject will be - people, places, events, programs, universal truths, etc.

2. After deciding on your general topic, the next step is to come up with a limited topic. People- concentrate on one person or a specific group; places - your school, your community; activities - enrollment, graduation, summer class; universal truths - love between a mother and child, pizza’s the best thing ever to happen in history...

Using themes for your photo essay

A photo essay can make use of certain themes. Various pictures taken in different places, different times of the day, can be grouped together to illustrate a certain theme, whether serious or lighthearted, significant or trivial, like the pictures below which show students using chairs in creative ways other than sitting on them.



Speaking of themes ... if you have seen the Oscar best picture for l989, “The Last Emperor” directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, then you probably know that the recurring thematic device used all through the movie was the opening and closing of all kinds of doors or entrances.

Relevant article: “Week Five_The Photo Essay” from CUNY Graduate School of Journalism (topics include kinds of shots like signature shot, process, interaction, clincher, etc., and how to structure your narrative)

Vary your shots

In whatever way you develop your photo essay, thematically or chronologically (we’ll discuss this next time), you have to vary your shots, your viewpoints. Use close-ups, medium shots, full shots and long shots. You have to employ a variety of lenses. You have to shoot at different times of the day; use different viewpoints (eye level, low and high). You also have to shoot using both horizontal and vertical formats.

Kinds of pictures in a photo essay

In a written essay, you have the introduction, the body, and the ending or conclusion. In a photo essay, you would need different kinds of pictures - (1) establishing shots to show your viewers the setting or context of your subject; (2) major actions, stages or developments, to illustrate your theme or subject: (3) minor pictures which can serve as transitions; and, (4) pictures that will effectively close out your photo essay.

In a written essay, you always try to end it with a punch, with a line or expression that gives it a sense of completeness, a sense that nothing has been left hanging. With a photo essay, you try to end it with a picture that also brings a sense of completeness. In literature, we call this sense of completeness as “catharsis” which means a purgation of the negative emotions created within the reader. In Hollywood film making and scriptwriting, it’s called “closure” which means that the ending must provide a sense of completeness, a sense that everything has been resolved satisfactorily.

National Geographic Live! - Alison Wright: Portraits of the Human Spirit: After confronting her own mortality in a near-fatal bus crash, photographer Alison Wright dedicates her career to capturing the human spirit through her photographs and writing.

Photojournalism (31): Photo essays and sequence shots

Update as of September 18, 2023: If you’re a high school or grade school student in the Philippines who’s joining the photojournalism contest in the division, regional, or national press conference, I’m offering two free resources to you : A. 900-plus interactive exercises on English grammar, vocabulary, reading comprehension, verbal analogy, etc (with around 200 megabytes total file size). The exercises have time limit and automatic scoring, with an average of 10 items per exercise. Examples of these interactive exercises are: Common English grammar errors: Exercise 01 (nouns - confusions of number); Phrasal Verbs: Expressions with Go; English Placement Test (45 items). B. 200-plus resources (JPG, PDF, MP4, etc.) on photography and photojournalism, with 600-plus megabytes total file size. For some examples of these resources, surf to the “Free photography e-books, cheat sheets” page. For the download links and more information about how to use the interactive exercises, please surf to my “Better English resources and exercises” blog. Please inform your journalism teacher/schoolpaper adviser or your parents about these resources before downloading them. If you have any question about downloading or using these free resources, please email me (after informing your journalism teacher/schoolpaper adviser or your parents). I’ll be able to reply to you within two to three days; if you don’t see my reply in your Inbox, check your Spam folder. Or, you can text me. Also, if you win in the photojournalism contest at whatever level (district, division, regional, or national), you can send me your prizewinning pictures, and I will feature them in a blog post. Atty. Gerry T. Galacio gtgalacio@yahoo.com 0927-798-3138

“Hit or miss, trial and error, better luck next time, try and try again, next time make sure you’ve got film on your camera before you shoot, okay?”

These expressions best describe the emotions, the frustrations, the experiences you’ll have as you start to learn about photography. Some experiences you’d rather forget, some missed shots you’ll regret forever but just like life, photography is one activity where learning means building up through your experiences, growing by stages ... As rock star Alanis Morissette said in a hit song many years ago, “You live, you learn!”

Select your shots

One stage that you’ll go through as the photography bug hits you, is indiscriminate shooting. If you see something, you shoot it. If it’s out there, you shoot it. If something moves, you shoot it. You buy some more film, you shoot again ... As your skills improve however, you’ll become more selective in your shots. Your standards will become higher, and you’ll also realize that you don’t have enough money to buy all the film you need or want! (The high cost of film and processing, and the immediate results are some of the reasons why digital photography is such a big hit these days.)

Example of sequence shots

Remember our discussion of types of pictures and sequence shots? A sequence, as the term denotes, is a series of pictures of one subject, shot one after another. A photo sequence may or may not illustrate a certain idea or theme, but the series of pictures provides the viewers with more visual information about your subject. (Later on, you will learn that you can create a photo essay out of sequence shots.)

A. “Thoughts on graduation day” (photo essay using sequence shots with captions)

In the following pictures, I asked my Class 1990 yearbook staffer Eric to pose by the dike at the back of Rizal High School in Pasig (formerly credited in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s biggest high school). I was on the 3rd floor of a building with my beloved Canon AE-1 Program camera fitted with a Vivitar Series 1 70-210 mm zoom lens.

I wanted to express the contemplative mood and loneliness a senior normally goes through as graduation time comes near. I just wanted two elements in my picture - Eric and the still waters of the Marikina River flowing behind the Rizal High School campus in Pasig City. The first two pictures of the scene below were the ones I needed to express what I wanted.

But then, I saw the tugboat coming from the left. I switched on the power winder of my camera. I shot about 20 frames all in all as the tugboat passed Eric and created ripples on the water. Serendipity! I had a photo essay that could be used to illustrate life cycles, transient moments, peace and serenity, consequences and change!

We have spent four memorable years here in our beloved school, and the days leading to our graduation day have seen a thousand questions tumbling in our hearts and minds. Where do we go from here?

For some, the future beckons brightly as they are blessed not only with talent and intelligence but also with open doors and countless opportunities.For some the future looks dark and dreary, as innocent adolescent pursuits give way to serious concerns for jobs and financial security, with a college education merely a mirage in the dry desert sand of our crushed hopes and ruined dreams. And still for some of us, there is simply no future to speak about.

Still other questions haunt us as we rush from one graduation practice to another, from one class party to another …Will our friends in high school remember us through the passing of the years, through the changes in our lives, and through the distance of separation made more poignant when no letters come and birthdays are forgotten?

Will our friends still be there for us when problems come and solutions seem so elusive? Will our friends remain true to us even as they meet other people and encounter new experiences, or will the friendship we thought would never end, prove finally to be weak and temporal?

Will the joys and pains, heartbreaks and happiness we all shared be simply swept aside, never to be remembered, never to be allowed even a little space in our memories? Will the hopes and ambitions, the secret dreams we have dared to share only with our truest friends, be simply forgotten or revealed to others in careless, thoughtless ways?

Will our names be remembered? Will our friendships last? Will our friends still be our friends? Life oftentimes has a cruel way of frustrating our dreams, of crushing our ambitions, of ending our friendships …

But our friends have made a promise always to remember … Life indeed must move on, to bigger things, to better places … and we grow up, physically, emotionally and intellectually, and we will no longer be the kind of persons we were in our high school days …

The saddest truth in the whole universe is that time changes everything.

But our friends have made a promise always to remember …

But as we lie awake at night, the caressing wind carries to our consciousness the melodies of songs that brought wonder and meaning to our lives, songs that signified every turning point in our destinies, songs that we once shared and sang together as friends …

Slowly, the half-forgotten lyrics become clearer and they bring us back to our high school days …

Indeed, we have promised always to t remember. We can always remember. We must always remember …

Pssst, Eric! It has been eighteen years since 1990 when I asked you to pose by the dike. You can move away from the dike now, and go on with your life, okay?

B. The pictures below are sequence shots of a senior class having their yearbook picture taken.

I shot these pictures way back in 1991 with my beloved Canon AE-1 Program camera fitted with an FD f/1.8 50 mm lens, a yellow-green filter, and a power winder. After I shot the formal class picture, the fun began. If you mouse over each picture, the caption will appear for a few seconds.