Who said that photographing is not hard work?

4:45am, the alarm clock goes off. I get off bed without making noise. My cell phone is the only source of light in the house. I want to make sure that I cause the least amount of disruption to John and Scarlett’s sleep.

Quietly, I get dress in the bathroom with the layers of cloths that I have previously separated. I quickly eat a yogurt or a bowl of cereal. Pick up my camera bag that has been packed the night before with clean equipment, charged batteries, and snacks for the day. At the door, I take my tripod and pair of hiking shoes on my fast and silent exit only 15 minutes after the annoying alarm clock insisting buzz woke me up.

I breathe the fresh cold air of early morning that slaps me in the face and finish waking me up. It is the beginning of another glorious photographing day.

In order to capture sunrise hues in the sky, photographers need to be at location at least 15 to 30 minutes before sunrise. This allows time to find your way around hiking trails, quick view of possible foregrounds, equipment set up and of course, registering dawn. When I don’t know the location, I sometimes will give up to 45 minutes before sunrise to scout the area for the best angles.

After sunrise shooting, I try to pick a place to seat with a nice view where I will have a snack and just relax. In my opinion sunrise shooting is the most stressful for me. I don’t know exactly why, it might be the arrival in the pitch-black environment, or the uncertainty of the colours on the sky, or just the tiredness of the early morning.

If I am close to home, I will normally go back mid-day to take a power nap and re-energize, but it is not always possible. Sometimes I spend the entire day out walking, discovering places, exploring new locations, searching for good photo opps, travelling from one place to another…

Then, comes the second highlight of the day, sunset. This is less stressful for me because I can see where I am going and also, estimate if the sky will collaborate or not. J It takes a lot of the pressure out. In addition, it is a lot easier to predict how much time of the good light I will have, as on sunrises these are all unknown.

 Well, I cannot forget the night photography. In many cases, shooting at night make scenes more interesting either because of the light or because there is not tons of tourists around! So, the day many times does not finish right after sunset for photographers.

If I have not been able to make my point yet that photography is a hard work, let’s look at the after shooting routine.

Once I arrive from the field, I download my images on my computer. Then I back up on my travel hard drive. This is a temporary back up until I do a mass back up on my 2 definite external hard drives.

These are just the first steps of my workflow! I still need to sort them all – I have different categories of sorting i.e. blog worth, competition worth, nice to keep for a future Photoshop creative attempt – Finally I start processing the images.

I end up working more hours a week than a regular 9 to 5 job. But the satisfaction of seeing each of the images finalized is incomparable. It is so magical!

Yes, being a photographer is hard work, but it is also a really rewarding one. So, next time that you see a photographer, make sure that you recognize their efforts., acknowledge their talent, praise their creation and most of all appreciate how much work it has been put in each of the images.

Photography is hard work, paid by the emotions that the captured images provoke into viewers. Make photographers rich by letting the pictures touch you!  

Photographing Kinderdijk, The Netherlands

I have had the opportunity to visit The Netherlands this past spring and what more traditional than capturing some windmills and tulips?

This post will describe the Kinderdijk Windmills a UNESCO world heritage site since 1997. In total 19 windmills, which have been built in the year of 1740 rest in a row for photographers delight. It is the largest group of windmills in The Netherdlands, not to mention the well-preserved condition. Nowadays, power-driven turbines have replaced the function of the windmills.

Kinderdiijk is a small village about 20 km from Rottertam, the access is easy when driving. The other option is to book a bus tour from Amsterdam or Rotterdam. The downfall is that there will be too many people around and the images might not be as the ones envisioned.

When driving, the best location to photograph is the very first small side road of the village. As soon as he windmills are visible on the right side of the road, the first available entrance to the right will take the car all the way to the row of windmills. Tourist buses stop further down the main road closer to the souvenir stores.

I drove from Rotterdam for sunrise, arriving just a couple of minutes before the sun appeared. The best time to photograph the windmills is early morning or during the day, for sunset, the windmills are in the opposite side and the colours in the sky do not translate well. The earlier the better, so not only the sky will provide astonishing tonalities, but also there will not be people around to run into your images.

Image 1 - Silhoettes, reflection and mist in Kinderdijk

I took full advantage of the mist and reflections on the dikes. To accentuate the colour of the sky, I registered the windmills as silhouettes. Their shape is well recognized that there was no need to present details of their structure.

Image 2 - Kinderdijk windmills with surrounding environment

Image 3 - Row of windmills

Even after the sun had come out, I was able to register the beauty of the place and silhouettes of the windmills by placing the sun behind the structures. The vegetation foreground will became more illuminated allowing inclusion on the composition.

Image 4 - Sun peaking from behind the windmill silhouette. 

Image 5 - Recognizable forground with row of windmills in the background

Image 6 - Using the windmill to block the direct sun creating silhouette and nice colour in the sky

Once the sun had come up, I kept shooting, this time registering the details of the windmills architecture and their surroundings. On the opposite side of the row of windmills, there is an atypical shaped one.

Image 7 - After sunrise the full details of the windmills could be captured

Image 8 - Surrounding vegetation complement the windmills in the background

Image 9 - The only different windmill is located opposite to the row of similar windmills

There are plenty of windmills in The Netherlands, so if Rotterdam is far from your trip plans, I can reassure you that you will not be disappointed in not encountering windmills. However, if you have the opportunity to take a small detour to Kinderdijk, it is well worth it. 

Photo Tip - Self-Timer

There are some photo shoots that turn out to be a complete disaster, but like everything else in life you have to take advantages of these moments to learn new things.

As one says, if life gives you lemons, make a delicious lemonade! That is what I have done on a very rainy where all my camera gear has decided to malfunction. 

When I am shooting landscape, I always have my camera on a tripod and to completely avoid any camera shake, I use a shutter release cable. Even if the speed is not low, I recommend using the shutter release. The main reason is that when depressing and releasing the shutter button the camera will experience a minimum movement, which can cause camera shake.

In any case, during this workshop my shutter release cable broke (together with my main lenses!). The wires came loose from overuse and it would work only when it felt like. Very frustrated with the situation and not being able to think straight, the workshop leader suggested that I use the self-timer of the camera.

Aha! It was the perfect solution! Now, when I need – which means that I have either forgotten my new and well maintained shutter release cable or I am too lazy to pick it up form my camera gear bag that I have left in the car – I activate the self-timer at 2 seconds.

What it does is when I depress the shutter speed from the camera, and release it there are still 2 seconds for the small camera movement provoked by my hand weight to be eliminated.

Thanks Rob Kennedy! You have saved that shooting and many others afterwards.