“Twenty years of walking while carrying a tripod,” laughs Tim Wolcott. “I felt like Lawrence of Arabia. I studied paintings, which are really about line, color, space and form. After getting all that knowledge, I thought I could break every rule photography ever created. I’ve drawn a lot of photographs before I find them in nature. Then I can photograph them.”

Wolcott’s photographic family lineage is outlined in Part One of this interview. Part Two explores his green gallery experience and his book production breakthrough for photographers, among other accomplishments.

©Tim Wolcott. "Butterfly Dreams was shot in the foothills of Southern California. This image was taken when a storm was approaching. I left my mountain home at 7,000 feet in a blizzard to be able to get here with the clouds forming and being pulled apart in the storm so I could get the shadows on the flower meadows. The hard part was to time the right shadows with no winds. The storm presented a big problem, with wind at 30 miles an hour. We had to wait until just the sequence with no wind and just the right shadows appeared at the same time. Happy to say after five hours I managed to get three very nice images. Patience pays off. 1/50th sec at f/22."

“I’ve figured out how to make a traditional, high-end coffee table book for photographers without having to throw $120,000 at the printing,” he explains. “It can now be done for a really extraordinary price with a printer in Hong Kong. That’s a significant breakthrough, and it’s really going to help the photo industry.” The Los Angeles Digital Imaging Group has tapped Wolcott to teach a class on this subject in a two- or three-step class where printmaking will be integral.

“This whole idea of 3000 books costing $110,000 or more is absolutely absurd,” he says. Wolcott’s formula for fine bookmaking overseas includes a dust jacket, shipped to a U.S. port, with Hexachrome printing and costs approximately $24,000. The price for 500 of those to have slipcases with linen and gold lettering is an additional $3000. A lower run of just 1000 books costs $15 per unit. The price gets even lower if you’re willing to settle for CMYK printing instead of Hexachrome.

Wolcott has a long history of firsts in the photographic industry, particularly when it comes to hardcopy of images. For several decades he’s been exhibiting his work that is entirely printed and framed with green technologies. In 1996 he built a gallery in Big Bear, California. It’s goal was to be the first continuously exhibiting green photography gallery in the world. “We only show pigment prints, which use no chemicals or heavy metals,” he says. “Our frames are from managed-forest woods. We try to do everything the right way.”

©Tim Wolcott. "This image is called Ephemeral Light, this image was create in Sequoia National Park. I visited the park about 5 weeks before this images was taken. I walked the valley looking and studying the trees. I wanted to see how elegant the tree were looking and to see what kind of backdrop the Dogwood trees had. I made a mental note, excited about what I saw, I quickly made a drawing and could not wait to get back. After five weeks I drove back, all the way I was hoping and envisioning fog in the valley. The second day, the fog arrived and I went to work. I ran from place to place trying make sure I got to every spot I had seen five weeks earlier. Shot at 1/5th sec at f/14."

Being environmentally conscious was not a trendy maneuver for Wolcott and his gallery. “It was a little hypocritical to show a beautiful shoreline of a lake in a photo mounted on the wall printed with Cibachrome technology, and then you’re dumping three gallons of toxic crap into the water system. We invented the first green process of printing color and called it Evercolor. The original idea was to make the prints last forever—nonfading and nontoxic. We were able to change out one of the yellows to get away from the heavy metal yellow, and make it 100% green. OSHA couldn’t regulate us. The prints last 250-plus years on display. That’s about 245 years long than a Cibachrome,” he laughs.

Light over long periods of time is what fades photographs and prints. This can be solved by using something like Tru Vue glass, which blocks virtually 100% of the UVA and UVB rays. “We wanted to show color photographs could be an investment, and last literally indefinitely, like a good, well-developed black and white photograph,” says Wolcott.

Eventually, Wolcott began consulting for ink jet printer companies. He helped develop pigment ink jet technology. “By late-1995 we made the first fine art ink jet pigment photographs, though we couldn’t show them until Photokina in 1996,” he says. “Ink jet printing has come a long way. I still think it has a little further to go, but it’s in a very good place now.”

In the near future, Wolcott will be bringing very small groups of people to the hidden places he loves to shoot in. Instead of a normal workshop, he wants to provide the locales where participants “will walk away with some of the best images they’ve ever shot,” he says.

©Tim Wolcott. "Ansel Inspiration named for obvious reasons. I was teaching a workshop in northern California. We were shooting Rhododendron blooms, and that night it snowed on the pass. I asked the student if they would like to shoot the snow vistas. We drove up and I found this scene and said to them, "remember the fog is rising from the valley floor. That fog will rise through the forest." Sure enough, within 15 minutes it rose and we were all ready, with the cameras on our Induro tripods, the mirror locked up and captured about 15 seconds of splendor. Shot at 1/15th sec at f/22."

Wolcott’s first camera was a Calumet Orbit 4×5. He moved to Mamiya medium format cameras. “When we were experimenting with what ink jet printers could do, we bought an 8×10 just to have a huge piece of film to see where we could take it,” he says. “To have a camera that large, you need an incredibly strong and sturdy tripod. I use the Induro tripod, the C414. When you’re climbing into a lake with $45,000 worth of camera gear on top of your tripod, it’s nice to know it’s big and strong. The rocks on the shores in Maine, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania are quite slippery. They’re ruthless to people. The best thing you can do is stretch out those tripod legs as wide as they can go and use that to help balance you. One wrong slip and almost anything digital hitting the water gets its electronics fried. That’s what I love about the Induro tripod. The ability to either close up the legs and help push me out of the mud, or to spread them out to help me balance is really important. Sometimes I’ll move rocks on the bottom of the pond so I can stand higher. With the extra-long tripod legs, I can position the camera even higher than I can hold it. It makes a big difference. I also use a smaller Induro.”

Tripods are integral to Wolcott’s images not only because of the long exposures he needs, as outlined in our first story on him, but because of perspective. “Picking the right height so the ground falls off at a certain rate is a unique way of looking at the landscape,” he explains. “If you don’t look at the ground and the way it falls away, the horizon doesn’t fall away at the right angle. This changes your perspective. When it’s correct, it allows the lilly pads to fall away at the right level, for instance. You want the image to feel three-dimensional, the way eyes see it. Sometimes the only way to mimic this is by getting the camera higher than the human head. When you walk in and see one of my 60 x 40-inch photographs, it feels like you’re standing at the actual scene. That’s what I’m going for.”

Induro has also helped him with stitching images. “I’ve been using Induro tripods for the past three years to do panoramic stitching since I went digital,” Wolcott says. “Having that super-sturdy tripod to do a 170-degree shot with some very heavy gear on it is really nice. It allows you to make the image feel like your eyes are there, but you also have this super-wide perspective. It’s like using an old banquet panorama camera, but now you’re shooting digitally, and you have every choice of lens Mamiya makes. It’s better quality tools than the old days. We used to have to walk around with these 22-pound tripods. They were the biggest and strongest ones you could get, but they were all metal. It was like carrying a baby around. Now we have these really lightweight, super strong tripods which lock very easily. You just shake off the water when you’re done and away you go. We used to have to really clean the old ones. ‘Adequate’ is a good description of what they were like.”

©Tim Wolcott. "This image is called An Autumn Brook. Shot in Pennsylvania, one of my favorite places. After shooting waterfalls for five days I wanted to focus my time now on the river. The river which I have walked past for many of hours. Looking and looking at it, I decided the river is always overlooked. I focused on walking up and down, just watching the water. What I noticed is when the light was higher you could see the muck below the water. I decided to wait and let the sun get lower in the sky and allow the water to reflect the color of the sky. This is a nice way add elegant color to your image and allow more color into the shot. This is a twelve second exposure at f/22."

Wolcott has a philosophy for the gear he carries which never fails him. “I have the same gear no matter where I go,” he says. “I never partition my gear down. Most photographers travel with one or two backpacks. They think about what they might need and then they’ll shrink their gear down. Over the years I’ve seen some people make very crucial mistakes, wishing they had this lens or that lens. I have one of the largest backpacks ever made, and carry thirteen lenses. I use a framing card to compose the shot I want, then set up the tripod in the right position to mimic that shot exactly.”

A Phase One P 45 camera is always with Wolcott. It shoots 39.4 16-bit linear capture using Capture One software. He also has a Mamiya 500mm lens. “That one,” he laughs, “you don’t try to carry with you. It works great for shooting lilly pads.” Wolcott can stitch landscapes together to create files up to 1.8 gigabytes, allowing for incredible detail when he prints his oversized images.

Tim Wolcott’s many years spent in pursuit of photographic excellence has done his family name proud. Part One of our interview with him chronicled his family’s long history with photography. Alexander S. Wolcott, an innovator in camera technology, would marvel at the technology his descendant uses daily. He would also be proud of the accomplishments Tim has achieved. From ink jet technologist to green gallery entrepreneur, book producer to educator, Tim Wolcott has worn many hats in the photo industry. Although he has worked hard at these ancillary areas to photography, great picture taking is still paramount to him. “You still need light, vision, and patience,” he stresses. “Image is everything.” We agree.

Tim Wolcott’s Web site

Along the Water’s Edge

Tim Wolcott’s Beginner Class

Tim Wolcott’s Advanced Class

Few photographers with a better pedigree come to mind when you think of Tim Wolcott’s. He’s a descendant of Alexander S. Wolcott, who, on May 8, 1840, was granted United States Patent Number 1582. It’s a patent for a “method of taking likenesses by means of a concave reflector and plates so prepared as that luminous or other rays will act thereon.” In other words, it’s a camera. It also happens to be the first American patent issued for photography.

Alexander Wolcott was born in 1804, and was known as a New York daguerreotype artist. His camera patent is the first one which used a concave mirror to reflect light onto the photographic plate, instead of lenses. This reduced the achingly-long exposure times common of the era’s technology, although people being photographed with Wolcott’s invention were still recommended to have “some suitable support for [his] head attached to enable him to remain perfectly still.”

If you felt that wasn’t impressive enough bragging rights for a photographer to boast these days, Tim can also thank Alexander for opening the first portrait studio in March of 1840, and organizing the first photo exhibit held in Washington, D.C. Other photographic Wolcotts of note include Marion Post Wolcott, best known for for the photographs she took during the Great Depression which documented the poverty and desperation of the rural poor, and Horace Wolcott, frontier photographer who died on the job, with most of his photos now lost. Photography is in the Wolcott lineage, and Tim Wolcott is a fine addition to the family passion.

©Tim Wolcott. This image was shot for the development of the pigment inkjet technology. I was asked to go and shoot some images that would really give the inkjet a challenge. This image was used to make the very first pigment inkjet photograph. The image was scouted the night before and shot at first light. Shot with a 8x10 camera 1 second at f/32."

An Iowa native, Tim grew up with a tornado room in his home doubling as a darkroom. The family moved to Wisconsin, where he took art and photography in his senior year of high school. That year he won a blue ribbon and a Gold Key Award in an Eastman Kodak competition. “That changed my life,” recalls Wolcott. “I decided instead of researching nature, I’d photograph nature and landscape.”

After high school, Wolcott moved to California, where, at Santa Monica College, he studied under George Phillips, master black and white printer and friend of Ansel Adams. At this time, Wolcott was also working for fashion photographer Bruce Weber. Wolcott entered a photo in a Carmel photographic competition. The judges mistook the photo for an Ansel Adams photo. When he won, he was introduced to the master himself.

©Tim Wolcott. "This image was created by aligning the Dogwood exactly where I wanted the blossoms to appear in relationship to the waterfall. I chose the fixed focal length 80mm at 3 sec. With the depth of field, I had everything in focus except I dropped the focus out just before it reached the cliff. This allowed the dogwood to seperate itself from the background making the image to become very three-dimensional looking. I study Asian folding screens and tapestries. My goal was to create a very elegant image. It took 65 images shot in row to capture two images I knew would be tack sharp."

Wolcott credits his grandfather, Harry Wolcott, with starting him on his path to become a landscape photographer. “In the Midwest, one of the things you do in spring is go out and look for morels, a kind of mushroom,” he explains. This and other outdoor activities helped instill a love of nature in him.

©Tim Wolcott. "This image was used to invent the process called Evercolor. This image was used to make the very first green photograph ever made. Due to the rich colors and unique contrast, the image was the perfect image to see how the process was developing. The image was shot in Anza Borrego in the spring of 1991 with 4x5 camera 1/2 sec at f/45."

Wolcott began his career shooting black and white. In 1985 he started his work with color film, but didn’t change his subject matter or shooting style. Citing Brett Weston and Ansel Adams as his favorite photographers, Wolcott naturally found himself emulating them. “If you were going to be shooting black and white,” he says, “you were going to be compared to the great ones before us. A great color image is really a black and white image in disguise. The color just had to be perfect. Color is very misunderstood. Technically, they’re much more difficult than black and white. I’ve done both. The lighting can be perfect, the composition can be perfect, but if you have too many reds on one side of an image, then you have really poor color composition. If the colors are dull, it doesn’t become very luminous, like in a black and white image. This is why the power of color is so difficult.”

©Tim Wolcott. In the River's Path. "Taken in New Hampshire, during the storm of the century for the state. I noticed a waterfall jetting out of the mountain above, while looking for it I came across this amazing scene. The floods create a curtain of water behind this ancient boulder that has with stood the floods for eons of time. The boulder is protecting these trees from the waters. Shot with a Mamiya camera at 16sec at f/32."

In terms of style, Wolcott says he’s influenced by every photographer who came before him. “I study photography and paintings twenty to thirty hours a week. Both professions are people who study light. George Phillips got me planning and drawing my photographs before I took them. I make notes of things I want to see. I take them with me on location. Today they call it previsualization, but it works, and keeps your creative vision going. Painters do this, too.”

©Tim Wolcott. "This image is called Monet's Palette and was shot at Waldon Pond. This image was shot using a 300mm Mamiya Lens at 12 sec at F/22. I have been creating these Monet inspired images for about ten years. But the ponds need to be designed by the gods in order for them to really look like they were painted. In fact they painted by light being filtered thru the trees in the early morning during the fall."

To say Wolcott works hard to achieve his images can’t be overstated. Along with drawing photos before he takes them, he often relies on techniques invented with the advent of the camera. “I’m looking for structure, I’m looking for trees. Nature is about finding perfection in chaos. You have to put those little pieces together. Framing cards are something sorely overlooked. It’s just a four by five hole in a card. They did this in the old days to compose their images perfectly, but also to redefine their compositions. If you look through the hole and it’s eight inches away from your eye, that’s a composition for a 210mm lens. It speeds up your process very quickly. I now carry four different cards: a square format, a four by five, and two panoramic framing cards. Ansel Adams did this. You get to show exactly what you want in the shot, the height of your camera, everything, and you do this with your eye, not the camera. Then you mimic that vision with the camera and pick the focal length that matches that exactly. Then it’s just a matter of waiting for the light to get to be the way you want it.”

©Tim Wolcott. "Soon after I got my new Phase One Camera system I traveled to the Escalante area in Utah to get used to my camera before I took my annual photo trip to New England for the fall shoot. I wanted to work any bugs out here before I went on my 24 day trip. The fall had not really taken place yet except for this little valley. I have been scouting this area for several years, and always missed this location because it turns two weeks before the rest of the mountain. It's good to know the area before the prime time shooting happens. The image took just over six hours before the beams got really strong. Some photographers drove by several times and finally stopped and asked what I was waiting for. I told them I was watching how the light lit up the trees and cliffs. I was waiting for the light to hit. They said, 'That could take all day.' I promptly said, 'This is like the gods are speaking to me and patience will pay off.' Shot P45 with 80mm at f/22 at 1 sec."

Wolcott’s images do not come easily, and he’s quite clear the speed and ease of use of digital formats has erased established techniques he relies on every day. “The disciplines are what’s being lost today in photography,” he says. “People want things done easily, and that’s a mistake. Visions need to be captured as they’re seen. If you don’t have the discipline and the passion to make the shot happen, you’re not going to get it. This wild approach of shooting hundreds of photos where you’re just praying you’re gonna get one usable image—that’s fine for sports and wildlife and other moving images, but landscape is a personal and intimate time. You’re waiting for nature to get perfect, and it usually only happens for a very short time. I’ve waited up to six hours in one location for that light to go exactly where I want it to. I usually wait at least two hours. You don’t just walk upon a scene and shoot it.”

©Tim Wolcott. Serenity of the Falls. "This is one of my favorite places. This image was scouted the day before and when we showed up first thing in the morning before the sun rose. The waterfall on the right of the image had developed from the rains of the nighttime. This image has grace and power in the same shot. The waterfalls of Pennsylvania are amazing and spectacular. We are planning doing some workshops here."

Not only must a photographer have patience and apply a thoughtful methodology to shooting as he does, but Wolcott also contends with the wildest uncontrollable force on the planet: nature, and in particular, weather. “Wind is a big enemy in shooting landscapes,” he says. “Great lighting is typically very low lighting. If you’re standing in a forest, it’s often twelve stops of light. I shoot with a Phase One camera, so I can carry twelve stops of light. There’s times when I have to wait two hours because the tree bark is extra dark and the dogwood blossoms are extra white. I don’t want either one of those to blow out. You do have to wait to get these perfect. You’re waiting for everything to get perfect, including the wind. My average shutter speed is six or eight seconds. For nature to hold steady that long, it’s got to be a pretty amazing day.”

©Tim Wolcott. Mono Lake Sunrise. "Shot at 4 sec at f/64 using Nikkor superwide 90mm on a 4x5 zone VI camera. This is my very first shot in color. I scouted this image the night before and woke up before sunrise in the winter. I climbed into the water and set the shot up early so the water would be calm before the sun started to rise."

Finding the areas he wants to shoot in requires just as much prep work as the actual photography. “When I scout a forest, I create a grid,” says Wolcott. “You find the right trees with the right backdrop, you figure out where the light is going. If I’m shooting something like dogwood trees, we’re scouting that five or six weeks in advance. Then it’s a wait for the tree to get perfect, and hope nature cooperates. Typically, if the sun is up, there’s wind. If the sun is hitting the atmosphere and there’s shadowy areas and bright areas, it creates its own wind.”

©Tim Wolcott. Dogwood in the Moonlight. "Taken in the Smokey Mountains National Park. Shot with a 4x5 camera Taken at night time for 8 minutes at f/22. The tree was spotted earlier in the day, but it lacked excitement. So I came back at 5:15 am in morning so the moths would not be out and disturb my photograph. Using two flashlight to help me focut the camera, I quickly set up and captured this elegant tree in the moonlight."

Wolcott applies tried and true techniques, but he’s not a luddite. “People rely too much on technology to solve their problems,” he says. “They’ll think, ‘Photoshop will fix it.’ This is what they’re being taught. Is Photoshop a great tool? Of course it is. Would Ansel Adams be using it? Of course he would, but it has to be used in discipline. It can’t be used as an end-all, fix-all. Getting your composition, picking the right depth of field for your shot, picking the right angle, choosing the right focal length of your camera, and then, of course, you’re waiting for the light to be perfect. All of these elements Photoshop cannot fix. If that’s 95% of a photograph, what’s it actually fixing? Yes, you can get rid of litter you can’t remove from the middle of a lake, or other things humans do to our environment to make it look ugly. It can do dodging and burning in color, which you couldn’t do before easily. It takes a lot of discipline to make a photograph as perfect as possible beforehand.”

©Tim Wolcott. "This image was created first by seeing the image while looking through a framing card. It was shot while standing upon a giant fallen Sequoia tree about 14 feet off the ground. While I could have shot this image in one frame it would have been a small file. I chose to shoot this by stitching seven images consecutively shot at 5.5 sec a piece. I had to shoot the image right to left since the cloud that is engulfing the forest was moving that direction and I needed to have the same light throughout the image. Shot with a P45 Phase One Camera back, Mamiya AFD camera on a Induro Tripod."

Although mostly known for his stunning landscapes, Wolcott shot a 2007 project in Antarctica. “I come from the old world,” Wolcott explains, “where a good sturdy tripod and camera are critical. Suddenly I was shooting handheld from a Zodiac, which is moving on the water. Your problem then isn’t the wind, it’s the movement of the boat or your shutter speed. By using the histogram, I could tell there’s no true black in the shot, so I pushed the histogram toward the dark, which sped up my shutter speed by two stops. Since I only needed fifteen feet to infinity, with nothing in front of that, I used hyperfocal distance, and set my camera like the old World War II photographers, and I was able to get my shutter speed up another two stops. That’s significant: I was shooting at 1/180th of a second to 1/220th of second, handheld from a Zodiac. You can only do that with fixed focal length lenses.”

©Tim Wolcott. Parthenon. "This image was shot from a Zodiac, using a Phase system. Hand held triple stitched at 1/220th sec at f/11. This amazing piece of ice was made some 10,000 plus years ago but the carving on the ice happened in a very short period of time by rising and lowering of the tides. I got the driver of the Zodiac to position the boat right where I wanted it to be. The soft light allowed me to capture all the detail of the Iceberg. Shot in Antarctica in a place called Graveyard of the Icebergs. The iceberg collasped that night in big storm."

Wolcott cut a unique figure on his voyage to Antarctica, particularly among other photographers. Armed with his Induro tripod and frame cards, he was working in ways alien to the other shooters. They questioned why he didn’t start snapping away with the rest of them. His answer? “I told them I’d rather go back with one or two great ones than hundreds of bad ones. Nature can’t be rushed, nor can a great photograph be rushed.” We couldn’t agree more.

Watch for the second installment of our profile featuring Tim Wolcott’s revolutionary printing of his new book, Along the Water’s Edge, his history with accurate inkjet printing, his creation of the first green gallery, and more.

Tim Wolcott’s Web site

Along the Water’s Edge

Tim Wolcott’s Advanced Class

“Those birds just don’t sit still for too long,” Eric D. Brown quips. In the last year, Brown has heavily focused on bird photography. Operating from his home in the Dallas suburb of Wiley, Brown has been been aiming his lenses at everything from doves on his backyard fence to Dark-Eyed Juncos at the Spring Creek Forest Preserve to stunning Great Blue Herons at Bob Woodruff Park.

©Eric D. Brown. Great Blue Heron, Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L, 1/250 sec., f/8.0, 400mm focal length, ISO 800.

“Bird photography has allowed me to become a better photographer,” Brown explains. “Anyone can take a picture of a bird, but to capture the detail and character of the bird is what I’m after.” The work Brown shares on his photography blog is testament to his rapidly emerging skills. “I’ve always been a very noncreative person,” declares Brown, an Oklahoma native and engineer by training. “I’m very analytical, and that’s coming into play in my photography. You have numbers and settings. You can play around with them and see what they do for you. It’s been a lot of fun for me.”

©Eric D. Brown. Male Cardinal, Canon EF 500mm f/4 L, 1/250 sec., f/7.1, focal length 500mm, ISO 400.

Shooting a Canon EOS 5D with a 24-105mm lens and a 7D sporting super telephoto lens, Brown’s workflow is all-digital. Now working as an IT consultant, Brown’s passion for photography was sparked by his wife Tracie, a professional portrait photographer , on their trip to Yosemite National Park. “On my first trip as a shooter, I stood next to her and took photos of what she took photos of,” Brown laughs.

©Eric D. Brown. Canon 24-105mm L, 1/1600 sec., f/5.6, focal length 24mm, ISO 400.

Being a wildlife photographer, Brown spends much of his time slogging out to isolated locations. Even moreso than a studio photographer, all aspects of his gear are examined and evaluated. That he is an engineer certainly doesn’t lower the criteria he uses as benchmarks. “I’m always walking with the Induro tripod slung over my shoulder, the camera and big lens attached, trudging through the fields and small woods we have here,” he says. “When I find a place I want to shoot, I just throw down the tripod in the mud, or whatever might be there. I level it off as best I can on uneven ground and grab some photos. It’s perfectly fine and there’s no stability problems at all.”

©Eric D. Brown. Gray Jay, Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L, 1/125 sec., f/8.0, focal length 400mm, ISO 400.

“I was out this weekend and had some mud on the seat of the tripod. It can get caked on there, but you just scape it off and it’s good to go,” says Brown. Currently shooting atop an Induro CT314 Carbon Fiber 8x tripod, which was a gift from his wife, Brown has gone so far as to write a detailed review of it on his blog. “I love the product. I’ve been out shooting with it for the last month and love the stability of the thing.”

©Eric D. Brown. Cormorant, Canon EF 500mm f/4 L, 1/640 sec., f/7.1, focal length 500mm, ISO 400.

“I shoot with incredibly big and heavy lenses. The platform needs to be very stable, whether I’m shooting birds 20 or 200 feet away,” Brown explains. “The slightest bit of tremor cause the picture to be unsharp, at the least. I don’t put any extra stabilization or weight under it at all.”

©Eric D. Brown. Female Cardinal, Canon EF 500mm f/4 L, 1/400 sec., f/4.0, focal length 500mm, ISO 400.

Brown’s choice of subject matter was enforced by his geographic location. “Being in Dallas, there’s not a lot of wildlife unless you drive a few hours,” he explains. “Birds, however, are everywhere here. They were a way to learn how to take a better picture because I could just go out in my backyard and photograph four or five different species. I’m always looking to shoot wildlife other than birds, though.”

©Eric D. Brown. Bull Elk, Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L, 1/200 sec., f/5.6, focal length 400mm, ISO 400.

Birds are not the only wildlife he photographs. “I love to shoot anything I can, but where I’m located, I’m largely focused on birds,” he says. Non-wildlife subjects raise other interests and shooting philosophies for Brown. “I don’t do any portrait photography. It’s more challenging for me to take a good photo of a person than of a bird. I do like architecture, though, but I haven’t had much of a chance to get out and learn how to do it properly.”

©Eric D. Brown. Grand Teton sunset, Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L, 1/1600 sec., f/5.6, focal length 400mm, ISO 1000.

In the future, Brown has his sights on something more difficult. “The thing I want to work on and get better at is birds in flight,” he says. “I’m pretty well-versed in them sitting in one place, but to get a sharp, clear composition of them flight is my next area to get into. I haven’t gotten one I’m happy with yet.”

©Eric D. Brown. Great Blue Heron, Canon EF 500mm f/4 L, 1/1250 sec., f/4.0, focal length 500mm, ISO 1000.

Brown is also interested in building up a workshop organization which will bring great photographers to teach Dallas-area shooters new skills. I used to teach, and I like doing it, so I think this might bring my passions together. My greatest contribution, though, will be  more administrative, putting the entire thing together.” We wish him well, and look forward to hearing more news on his Dallas workshops and seeing those birds in flight.

Eric D. Brown’s Photography Minute

Eric D. Brown on Flickr

Photography Minute on Twitter

Eric D. Brown on Facebook

Eric D. Brown on Vimeo

Eric’s Induro Tripod review

Eric D. Brown, Technology Executive

Tracie’s Web site and blog

Tracie on Facebook

Dan Saelinger is one of my favorite commercial photographers, and as an added bonus, he often gives us a behind-the-scenes post on his blog. This recent one about his shoot for Business Week is particularly great because I’ve been looking specifically for some clever stop motion stuff to feature on this blog, as stop motion is, well, something you’d do with a tripod. Also it’s just cool.

Here’s how Dan describes the project; see the final stills and video work below.

As you may recall as the holiday approached last month I got insanely busy.  One shoot taking up a majority my time was a project for Business Week.  At the end of every year Business Week does a double issue giving a financial forecast for the upcoming one. I was tapped to shoot three images that would connect the different features together.

After working with the design and layout the creative director made the call to go with all  images on white.  It was also decided that we should use a globe as a common connecting element in each of the shots. Below are the final images.

While we were doing this project I thought it might be fun to try a little stop motion video as a potential practice run for future projects.  So below are two of the concepts done up stop motion style.

BW Darts from Dan Saelinger on Vimeo.

BW Trap from Dan Saelinger on Vimeo.

Today we have an interview with Erin Nicole Johnson, a photographer I find really thoughtful and funny and interesting. I think you will too.

Give me the 411 on yourself- education, background, image-making philosophy; your work is so wonderfully full of life.

I’ve been in too many and not enough places. I grew up in Niles, Michigan, then moved to southern Illinois, then moved back to Michigan in a suburb of Flint when I was 15. I attended the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD—which I graduated from in 2007) but also went to the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto for a semester. After my exchange was over, I took the overnight greyhound bus down from Canada and moved in with a friend in New York. We shared a room (literally—a room) in Washington Heights for a summer and would split the two stacked mattresses apart every night.

My work is heavily based on stories, and the main bulk of my photographic portfolio (and a project which I’m actually returning to) is from a series actually called “Short Stories”. It was initially inspired by finding some of my mother’s old journals in high school, and finding some parallels between what she felt and what I had felt in high school. By combining some of the passages from her journals, as well as mine, I started to make up the skeleton of the work. So, the first step for me when it comes to creating is research, research, research. Taking the time to feel inspired by many different sources, taking loads of notes, and drawing lots of sketches.

I like that you have a bit of everything going on in your portfolio- travel, portraits, some personal documentary- have you fallen into this path, is there one you’ll pursue more in the future?

What I have on my website currently is kind of an archive of what I’ve done so far. I’ve experimented a lot to see what I like best, but truthfully they’re all basically “personal work”!

With the project (Short Stories) that I’m picking back up on—the bulk of which is in the “Personal Work 1” portfolio—I’m hoping to refine my work and mostly focus on personal/fine art. Its basis is somewhat “recreating memories,” but I wanted the newer photographs to focus on “creating” memories: the people you see in a grocery store that make you wonder about their life (what they do, what their family is like, what they think about), or something caught out of the corner of your eye: a flash of a person standing on their front lawn, etc.

What type of commercial/editorial projects have you been up to lately? What type of editiorial/commercial projects would you like to be up to?

The most recent project was the 2008 Annual Report for Fraser, a Minnesotan non-profit that offers a myriad of resources for people with autism (www.fraser.org). My photograph “Coney Island” was also published on the cover of the Water~Stone Review #12, “In the Frame” this year. After I finished my internship, I took off for two months in Europe when I was photographing what would later become “Live Like This,” so photography jobs have been fairly quiet since I returned, which is fine. I’ve started a fairly interesting new day job, marketing sustainable insulation for houses (crazy, eh?).

I always love working with non-profits and would love to continue shooting portraiture or still-lives for periodicals. I’ve also always wanted to shoot a look-book for a fashion designer, and I’m hoping to work something out once I can find more designers nearby.

What is your favorite picture?

I think it might be “Golden Eagle Motel, Golden Arches” because it’s so ridiculous. Attempted sanctity on a motel sign that’s all but shouting, “Go America!” (not to mention motels are not particularly known for being the holiest of places). And what looms in the distance but the Golden Arches themselves? Rather than the gates of heaven, we get burgers. It’s incredibly macabre, but what are the chances of finding this bizarre scene in real life?

How does a tripod assist you in your image-making?

Quite a bit of the photographs are either 4×5 or medium format, so a tripod was definitely necessary.

Additionally, having the camera stationary makes it possible for me to compose the scene before I take the photograph, as if I were directing a film.

A member from Oklahoma City posting under the handle mutau052 on the Canon Digital Photography Forums seems very pleased with his new Induro AP2 tripod kit. See the unveiling photos here, plus his initial thoughts. Congrats on your purchase, mutau052!

Since we started the week up in the air, it seems natural to take our time coming down to the ground. Hover, even.

Enter photographer Denis Darzacq, who uses photography to do that most amazing thing: stop time. These are from the series Hyper, 2007:

And here’s a rather endearing behind-the-scenes of how the photographer creates his images. Amazing how something so frenetic seems so peaceful and calm in the end.

See more Darzacq, here.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been seeing an awful lot of through-the-airplane-window shots lately. Maybe it’s because camera phones are so prevalent and of increasingly good quality, but I might go so far as to call this a trend.

Why don’t we take a little tour of these images? A good place to start would be with Kate Steciw, I think, who makes beeeyootiful work.

These are called Mountains of Madness. I have it on good authority that they are the Alps.

This one is by Alex Prager, a new phenom in the art world.

I love the drink and plane window juxtaposition. Here is a vintage shot, by none other than William Eggleston.

This is Utah. Amazing, no? The image is by Alexander Heilner. See more, here.

These are almost otherworldly. By flickr’s Zeke Sneaker.

And finally, a camera phone image over Hong Kong, by Dennis Wong. Very cool.

Keep up that high-flying work, folks!

Wow, this week has a theme- great Induro reviews by real folks. Eric Brown of Photography Minute wrote to say he’s pleased with his new CT314, and thought I’d share a bit of his review. Complete with pictures! Take it away, Eric:

I’ve been looking for a good carbon fiber tripod. What I found was the Induro CT314 Carbon Fiber 8X Tripod….and I’m glad I found it.

Initial Thoughts on The Induro CT 314:

This tripod is solid! The legs are solid. The leg locks are solid. The center column lock is solid. Everything is solid on this tripod. The tripod is rated to hold 39.6 lbs, which should be enough to hold any tripod head + camera / lens combo. I found no slipping or wavering on this tripod like I had on my previous tripod. The leg locks are solid and, while not the same design as some other well regarded leg locks, they feel just as solid.

Height

The tripod will get tall (for you tall folks) and will get low for those of you who are into macro and/or if you are looking to change the perspective of your photographs.

I took a few minutes to run the tripod through all of its configurations so you can see how low and high it can go..take a look at the photographs below:

Induro CT314 8X Tripod at its lowest point

Induro CT314 8X Tripod after unfolding

Induro CT314 Tripod with all legs extended

Induro CT314 Tripod all legs and center column extended

Changing Leg Angles

One of the interesting features of this tripod is the locking mechanism for changing the angle of the legs. The locking mechanism is easy to use and provides great support.  Below is a photo of the locking mechanism pulled out in preparation for changing the angle of the leg.  To change the angle of the leg, you pull the leg in a bit and then pull the leg angle lock out and place the leg at the predetermined angle (24 degrees, 55 degrees and 80 degrees) and then push the leg angle lock back into place. This approach seems much more stable (and easier to use) then the one on my old tripod.

Induro CT314 Tripod leg angle lock

Column Locking Mechanism

While I’ve never been a huge fan of columns on tripods (I’ve always thought they took away from the stability), the column on the CT 314 is solid and the column lock is as solid and easy to untighten/tighten as I’ve seen (a photo is below). The center column is grooved, which keeps it from turning while using the tripod.

Induro CT 314 Center Column Lock

I’m told that there is a short column for use with this tripod but I’m pretty happy with this one so far.

Features

• Wide Stance Cross-braced Magnesium Alloy Spider provides ultimate core system stability

• Extra Long Grooved Center Column extended camera positioning without unwanted column rotation

• Full Width Leg Locks maximum support at any angle

• Dust and Moisture Resistant Ergonomic Rubber Grip Leg Locks ensure an easy positive 1/2 turn all-weather lock

• Interchangeable Rubber Feet and Stainless Steel Spikes in Carbon Fiber mount provide the right contact on any surface or terrain

• Slip Resistant Top Plate with Reversible Tripod Head Mounting Screw assures compatibility with virtually any tripod head

• Spring Loaded Weight Hook allows additional weight mounting stability during windy conditions

• Oversized Center Column Lock adds vibration reducing structural support

• Non-Rotating Carbon Fiber Leg Sections offer quick and easy setup

• Reversible Locking Center Column allows low angle shooting (optional ballhead not included)

• Adjustable Leg Angles with Lock accommodates uneven surfaces and awkward shooting situations

• Integral Bubble Level allows adjustment to prevent uneven pans and tripod head movements

• Triple Closed Cell Comfort Grip provides comfortable handling during cold or hot outdoor conditions

• Double Threaded Accessory Mount fits wide range of accessories (optional PocketWizard and bracket not included)

Weight     5 lbs (2.3 kg)
Includes     Deluxe carry case, strap, toolkit
Warranty     2 years (+3 Online = 5 total)

Conclusion

This is a great tripod for anyone looking for a sturdy professional level carbon fiber tripod.  I would easily recommend this tripod (or any other Induro tripod) to any photographer out there…great tripods and great prices.

Thank you so much for this thorough review, Eric! Let’s check out some of your bird pictures, they’re fab (I especially love this cardinal.)

See more!

I’ve come across photographer Scott Bacon’s great review of Induro’s CT113 tripod. Scott often shoots outdoors and needs light, versatile gear. Looks like he found what he needed!

Below are some excerpts.

Being a hiker, backpacker, traveler, photographer, here were my requirements.

• Light, Light, Light! Carbon fiber, for sure.

• Sturdy and rigid enough for my Canon 5D Mark II and my selection of (smallish) lenses.

• 20-22″ folded length - better for strapping to backpacks and fitting in suitcases.

• 3-section non-rotating twist locks - for reasons stated above and I like the twist locks because they tend not to snag on tree branches and brush when hiking.

• Built-in bubble level - convenience.

• Hook at the bottom of the center column - don’t use it much, but surely nice to have when the wind is howling or when shooting in deep, powdery snow.

• 50″ height without center column extended - expedites setup with DSLR and works great with a 4×5 field camera.

• Padded grips on legs - just a “nice to have” - not really a requirement, I guess.

• Reasonably priced - I don’t mind spending on high quality gear, but I’m not going to pay for just a name when other alternatives of equal quality exist.

During my research I found that there are many more options in the world of carbon fiber tripods than there was 10 or 12 years ago! Of course, some of those products are made well and some… not so much. I read reviews and perused forums and decided on the Induro.

First impressions of the Induro Carbon 8x CT113 from a discerning photographer:

• Impressive! Very light, sturdy, and operates smoothly - love the non-rotating legs!!

• Bubble level is cool.

• Perfect integration with my RRS BH-40 ball head - nicely balanced.

• Includes nice carrying case, spiked feet and small tool kit.

• Question about durability… Will this tripod last 10 years? Only time will tell, I guess. I can foresee deterioration of the foam pads on the legs - no big deal - replaceable. And I wonder about the same of the rubber on the twist locks - could be a bigger deal.

I’m quite happy with the Induro and I can’t wait to hit the trail and put it to work!

Thanks, Scott!

I love your new pictures….

See more of Scott Bacon, here.