Induro Blog

Although his photography has taken him around the globe to shoot assignments and build images for each of his books, Andy Katz has not only found his niche, but has risen to the top of that vertical market. Accomplished in many types of photography, Katz is most often known for his worldwide documentation of all things wine. Living in Sonoma Valley for the past ten years, for decades he’s been shooting and publishing some of the most arresting scenes of vineyards and wine production. We recently had the opportunity to discuss photography, tripods, and, of course, wine.

©Andy Katz

In high school he worked in a White Plains, New York camera store. After graduation, he attended the Art Center College of Design to study photography. Leaving to turn pro, he relocated to Boulder, Colorado, and opened a studio focusing on the ski industry. Shooting an album cover for Dan Fogelberg led to a spate of work for the music industry, including album covers for other artists.

©Andy Katz

Katz moved to Los Angeles in 1977 to specialize in music industry photography. Eventually faced with having to sign another one-year contract with a record company, Katz realized he no longer wanted to be in L.A., so he returned to Boulder, where he lived a total of 32 years. A friend owned a restaurant showcasing American wine, and gave Katz an assignment: fly to Napa and Sonoma to photograph the wine industry for eight days. “I fell in love with the place,” he recalls. “I really liked the photos I got. They were framed large format in a studio-style for this restaurant, and they looked great. I went back to Napa and showed some images to the wineries, and I got several jobs.”

©Andy Katz

One job turned into another, and Katz built up his library of photos from both valleys until he created his first book, A Portrait of Napa and Sonoma. The book was well-received. “It got me my start in the book biz,” he says. Since then, he’s gone on to publish Vineyard, The Heart of Burgundy, Burgundy and Its Wines, Robert Mondavi Winery, Tuscany and Its Wines, and Concannon: : The First One Hundred and Twenty-Five Years, among others. His latest title, New Zealand: Sea, Earth, Sky, is available on his site. A book on India is forthcoming, and a new book on Sonoma with an introduction by James Laube is heading to the printer this month.

©Andy Katz

Katz shoots all-digital these days, and his main camera body is a Sony Alpha 900. “There are certain things I miss about film,” he says. “I’m convinced in years to come these software geniuses will be able to figure out ways to recreate everything I like that film does better than digital. Digital brings it up a notch. I’m shooting a 35mm digital camera now that has equal quality to 6 x 7 film.”

©Andy Katz

“I use a tripod often,” Katz says. “There’s so much you can do with a tripod that you absolutely cannot do without one. When people are starting out in photography, it’s essential. It slows them down and lets them observe what’s in the viewfinder, as opposed to shoot first, focus second, and compose third,” he says, laughing. As far as tripods go, he’s well-covered. “I now have three Induro tripods I use,” he reports. “For travel, I’ve got the C114. When I’m not shlepping, I’ve got the C413, and I’ve got one in my car that’s in between. I’ve been a big advocate for tripods for a long time.”

©Andy Katz

When asked what younger photographers are missing by not using a tripod, Katz is quick to list his thoughts. “First, it slows down what you’re doing and it makes you think. Anything that makes you think is good. With digital technology, things are so simple. Pixels are free, so no one’s worried about shooting too much. There’s a machine gun mentality of overshooting and not thinking enough. What a tripod does is it makes you stop, think, and look more carefully at what you want in the frame and what you don’t. That, to me, is the key of composition.”

©Andy Katz

“Using a tripod allows you to take photos where you couldn’t do it without a tripod,” Katz reiterates. “If you’re shooting in gorgeous light which is very low—and that’s my favorite light to shoot in—and you want some depth of field, you’re going to be shooting at two or three seconds, and there’s no way you can do that without a tripod. I often tell people the tripod and the ball head you choose are going to be two of the most important decisions you’re going to make photographically.”

©Andy Katz

Keep an eye out for his forthcoming books, which Katz shot with the help of his Induro tripods. “Using one is a piece of cake,” he says. “They’re very well designed. They’re light because of the carbon fiber. You just do a quarter of a turn and everything pops in or out. I’ve had mine in rain, sleet, salt, dirt, dust, grime… I put these things through hell. I just wipe them down with a little water and they’re fine.”

©Andy Katz

After all the years of photographing vineyards and spending time with winemakers, the bug has bitten Katz, too. This year will see the release of a new venture for him: his own wine. Called AJE, it’s 100% Alexander Valley cabernet. “It’s wonderful,” Katz glows, just like his photos of the region.

©Andy Katz

Andy Katz Photography

“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

File this one under “you can’t make this up”.  Photographer Michael Hoffman wrote on his blog yesterday about saving a life with his new Induro tripod. Really!

This was the lifesaver, the C214:

The new, even more awesome CT214 was just released– see specs below. This one could probably save TWO lives.

CT214
INDURO CARBON 8X CT-Series tripods are the strongest, most stable tripods ever offered. A wide stance cross-braced magnesium alloy spider, ultra-light 8X layer Carbon Fiber legs, oversized center column lock and enhanced leg angle locks all contribute to a tripod with up to 35% greater stability, rigidity and higher load capacity. Includes interchangeable rubber feet and stainless steel spikes, a tool kit and deluxe carrying bag and strap.
Height: 20.9″ Folded / 61.2″ Extended

Apparently strong and stable was just what the doctor ordered for Hoffman. Here’s what happened, in Hoffman’s words:

Once in a while, you get far more than you expect from a piece of gear. On Saturday, I used my tripod to help save a life.

I was happy to have purchased Induro’s C214 Carbon 8X CT-Series tripod back in March. I have found the C214 to be lightweight, sturdy, reliable, and most importantly, affordable! Combined with the Induro DM12 ballhead, I have a budget minded gem of a tripod, just right for my mid-sized SLR rig.

This weekend, though, I got my money’s worth and more from my Induro. My wife and I joined my parents in the mountains of northern Georgia, land of a thousand waterfalls. It being the peak weekend for fall foliage in that area, we were taking in the scenery and visited some of the local waterfalls as well, including Helton Creek Falls near Blairsville, GA. I was able to capture some nice pictures such as the one below:

We were up near the area where you see the man standing, and a tourist had ventured out onto the rocks to snap a few pictures upstream. As I looked on from the edge, I saw him slip, his feet went out from under him, and he began sliding over the edge!

Fortunately, I was there with my tripod, already fully extended, and was able to stand in the relative safety of the bank and offer him the end of the tripod. He grabbed it, I pulled him up, and aside from being shaken up (and likely having a bruised backside) he was fine.All’s well that ends well, but what a nerve-wracking experience! I’m glad I was there to help, thankful I had the Induro tripod, and relieved that it is made a solid and sturdy as it is. A life depended on it.

Yikes! That’s some scary business! Here are some calm, beautiful sunsets from Mr. Hoffman to calm us down:

See more of his work, here.  And remember, never underestimate the importance of a sturdy tripod! Also: be careful around slippery waterfalls.

Can you believe it, folks- we’ve got another great interview today. This one is with Jon Ortner, who has created a tremendous career for himself as a travel photographer. Jon told me how he balances his commercial and personal work, and what spots on earth are most photogenic. It’s not to be missed, have a read!

How did you first begin to combine travel and photography, and where were your first trips? Which are the places you continue to return to?

Right out of High School I first traveled to India, Kashmir and Nepal. I went on my first trek into the Himalaya and that journey changed the direction of my life and sparked the beginning of my photographic career. For more than 20 years I continued to travel and photograph in the Himalaya. I worked mostly in Nepal, but also worked in Bhutan, Ladakh and Tibet. Some of the trips were longer than four months, and I went on treks into the mountains that extended over 50 days, walking more than 500 miles.

Nepal

As I became more interested in the spiritual traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism and the art and architecture they inspired, I widened my photographic interests to include Southeast Asia. I went on repeated shoots in Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, Bali, Java, India, and China, and continued to express my photographic passion. I created several books related to those areas, which can be viewed in the publications section of my website.

I  still have plans to continue working in Asia, but more recently, especially over the past five or six years, I have been concentrating on the canyons and deserts of the American Southwest.  Shooting with a Fuji 6×17cm Panorama film camera, I have just come out with my new book Canyon Wilderness of the Southwest. It has been reviewed by National Geographic, and just won the Gold Award for Book of The Year by Foreword Magazine.

How do you choose your gear- how have your choices changed since the rise of digital?

Since all of my books have been about outdoor destinations, I still hike very long distances and  carry huge amounts of equipment to create my images. Film Cameras, Digital Nikons and accessories, plus food, water, maps, first aid kit and everything else you might need to travel and shoot in the wilderness. The recent desert shoots have been especially demanding because of the amount of water you need to carry (and it’s concurrent weight) and the long distances that must be hiked in intense heat.

What features are most important to you in a tripod? (do you have particular needs for something great for long exposures, or that can flip upside down for macro shots)- which Induro tripod do you like most?

Of course, a sturdy tripod ends up being one of the most important items to have along.  As soon as I got to see and handle the Induro Carbon Fiber models, I was sold. Extra stable and light, the two magic words.  I have shot all over the world and know how rugged the Induro actually is. Unlike other models that have failed on me in the most inconvenient places, the Induro has served me faithfully in the worst sand storms, submerged in deep muddy water and frozen with ice and snow.

They are almost impervious to sand and water, but the real beauty of Induro, is that if you have to, they can be disassembled, cleaned, and put back together quickly and easily. I use the Induro especially for long twilight exposures, and the legs allow you to also shoot low to the ground for macro as well. I am currently favoring the small light C214 for hiking, and the C413 for closer to home and studio jobs.

What projects are you currently working on? How do you continue to balance commercial and personal projects?

Canyon Wilderness was such a large project, not only in terms of the time and effort it took to shoot,  but also in terms of the extraordinary care and effort that was put into the layout, printing, and design. It was all done with color, so I have been in the mood to do something visually different.

For many years I have also been shooting in Black & White, in both medium and large formats. I have been very excited, and have created some some of the most unusual and fulfilling images of my career. I will eventually produce a book on American Wilderness.

Balancing commercial and personal work has always been a challenge. Money means freedom, so the bigger and better the commercial jobs, the more freedom I have to shoot in expensive places like Bhutan. Every time I am stuck doing a mundane, commercial, real estate job, I just close my eyes for a moment and I am back in Bali, Kauai, or in some awesome slot canyon in Utah.

Having said that, many of my commercial jobs have also brought me to great locations, with creative and enjoyable shooting. So I am one of the lucky ones– to have it both ways. Because I love what I do, I shoot with the same passion whether it is for a client or for myself.

Which location that you’ve traveled lends itself best to photography (if it’s possible to choose)….

Hard to choose one, so here’s a few of my all time favorites:

The Island of Kauai in Hawaii

Shwedagon Pagoda, Yangon, Myanmar

Trekking anywhere in Bhutan

<all images copyright Jon Ortner>

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Thanks, Jon! I want to go on a trek myself now…