The New York Times: Lawyer and Stable Boy
Louisville, Kentucky – Clutching his first cup of coffee and wearing a rainsoaked parka, Paul Rutherdford was huddled under the glow of a dim lightbulb when I pulled up to Barn 26 on the backside of Churchill Downs at dawn. Rutherford, 38, leads an interesting double life. Each morning at the blistering hour of 4 o’clock, he rises to greet the day as a stable boy for Street Sense – the thoroughbred who took the roses at this years’ running of the Kentucky Derby. After walking him around the stable, Rutherford leads Street Sense out to the track with a pony strap and hands him off to an exercise jockey for a workout. “He likes to play rough…he’ll push his limits,” Rutherford said of the horse’s trickster personality. After a bath, Rutherford towels off Street Sense then ducks himself into an empty stall, puts on a tie, and heads for his day job at the Jefferson County attorney’s office.
Read the story in the NY Times.
30.10.07 by Geoff Oliver Bugbee
30.09.07 by Geoff Oliver Bugbee
30.09.07 by Geoff Oliver Bugbee
30.09.07 by Geoff Oliver Bugbee
30.09.07 by Geoff Oliver Bugbee
The ghostly white luminescence of the open laptop sends out a little silent glow here at my sidewalk table at the Miniri Hotel. The calm of night has thrown the curtain on Tirana, Albania. In the nearby, calls to prayer from a mosque fuses with a buzz of diesel Mercedez-Benz autos tooling about on the Skanderbeg Square. A few blue fluorescent bulbs buzz from the pock-marked marble facade of the old Tirana opera house. The building is at once a vision of hulking grandeur and also a symbol of communist-era wither and decrepitude. A policeman’s whistle sounds off at regular clips in the distance while sun-creased faces shuffle by on the sidewalk – a good plenty of them engaged in the ubiquitous solo endeavor of our current times: chatting the cellphone or texting the buttons.
Before any more time slips, I want to make good on a promise to the attendees of my Take Your Best Shot (10 Tips in 10 Minutes) lecture at the Big Jam session that kicked off the 2007 Idea Festival. The post below is a draft of the talking points on the ten tips. Next to the likes of this years heavy hitters like Michio Kaku, Ray Bradbury, Nicholas Kristof, or Steve Wozniak, my tech talk seemed more like small talk—but hopefully a stimulating 600 seconds of material nonetheless.
I. Cradle the Camera
Simple enough, but it’s the cure for the common blur. That is, most issues in regard to not being able to get a picture sharp stem from mild camera movement while the finger presses down on the shutter release. Most don’t even realize they’re doing it. Simply put, the steadier you have that camera, the sharper the shot. Try using your elbows as a tripod and firmly wedge them against your chest while cradling the camera. Shoot the picture at the end of an exhale, right before you take in the next breath. That’s when the body is at it’s most still point. Further practice and gained confidence with this technique will enable you to capture real low light pictures with a surprising degree of sharpness.
II. Get in Closer
It can’t be over emphasized. Of course Robert Capa said it best: “If your pictures aren’t strong enough, you’re not close enough.” By strong, he was talking about image impact. Getting up close—usually just a bit more than you’re used to—gives the eventual viewer more intimacy with the subject. That way, you can hone in on the small stuff, see things that were previously elusive, or just get lucky when something happens. You don’t need big expensive long glass, just use your feet and move in closer with whatever focal length you’ve got attached to your camera.
III. Eliminate the Extraneous
I lifted this one straight from William Albert Allard, a mainstay at The Geographic, and have kept it at the forefront of my viewfinder since the days of photojournalism courses at Brooks Institute. Hats to you Paul Liebhardt. When composing your shot, just before shooting, do a quick scan through the four corners of your frame. Take out what’s not necessary, i.e. distracting elements or irrelevant material that doesn’t serve to tell your story. Do it by composing the shot differently. This doesn’t necessarily mean your pictures have to be simple, but by taking out the extraneous, you’re essentially hitting the viewer with the message faster and more effectively with no wasted “eye time” on the image.
IV. Decentralize the Subject
Okay, the nutshell: get out of the habit of placing your subject in the bulls-eye middle of the frame. With center-weighted subject matter, it forces the viewers’ eye to the middle first, then off the picture to one side or the other rather than keeping them engaged within the four corners of the rectangle. By selectively placing your key subject off to oneside a little bit, or up at an angle, you then have more leftover room in the frame to “work in” other elements that relate to the visual story. In photo courses, this has been commonly called the Rule of Thirds. Have at it. There are infinite ways to utilize this technique and strengthen the impact of your image.
V. Make a Relationship
This one can be interpreted in a few ways. Literally speaking, human beings love to observe what “being human” is all about. Try to get that into your picture in terms of two or more people relating, whether with eye contact, body language, what have you. The other relationship could be that of something in the foreground connecting to something in the background or vice versa. If two elements relate to eachother in a photograph, it “holds” the viewer and makes them think, essentially leading to a more complex and potentially descriptive image. And mind you, the connection can be flat out obvious, or deceptively subtle. And finally, a relationship can be with the viewer themselves. Never underestimate the strength of eye contact.
VI. Find the Emotion
Almost self-explanatory. Expressions are priceless and add major impact to a picture. In many ways, the human face is a road map to the inner stuff, the soul if you will. Have your camera at the ready and wait for the moment to happen. Be patient. Many times the very nature of you having your camera to your eye will summon a response or shift in the subjects behavior. If you’re at the ready, you’ll get it. In fact, this technique can be practiced without a camera. Do a quick “note to self” whenever you see a hint of emotion (anywhere, with anybody) and take a silent picture in your mind. Next time you have your camera, this exercise will inform your endeavor. Being a photographer is simply being visually aware and on your game at all times. That’s it.
VII. Look at the Light
Be a connisseur of it, period. A semmolier is a trained and knowledgeable professional of all things wine and grape. As one who digs all things photo, it’s time to embrace the sun and it’s ever changing qualities of light. And believe me, once you get hooked, it’s a glorious concept. Try to make pictures “about the light” instead of just the material components in the picture. If your image has a bit of both, you’ve touched on something rare. Notice how the quality of sunlight changes throughout the day. Choose to shoot during the sweet hours, that is, the dawn and dusk of day. With your camera at hand during this time you almost can’t lose. The “add ons” to this rule: place the sun anywhere BUT behind you when you shoot. Notice the difference. Light is nice that way. It starts to teach you. Light coming from the side or behind a subject gives texture and shape to it.
VIII. Shoot the Detail
After you shoot that indelible first shot, go for the other stuff that gives you a distinct sense of what the scene is about. Train your eye to see the small stuff. If a group of pictures is what you’re after, hone in on the close-up; get those illustrative shots. After it’s all over, the collective body of pics will really help tell the complete story. Go in further than you think and single it out. The quirkier the better.
IX. Do Something Different
Always try new techniques. Be bold with the mighty photographic experiment. The most important way to look at this is to change your perspective. Most everyone shoots a picture from a standing pose. If you only interpret this rule in one way, I would say that you need to get off your feet. What do I mean? Lay on your stomach. Climb onto something. Take your shooting angle somewhere else between 3 and 8 feet from the ground. You’ll marvel at the results. They end up saying anything but “same.” Experiment with the mysterious. Just take the picture and see what you get.
X. Study All Things Visual
Make a habit of really looking at art on the page. Study the great painters and notice their keen attention to quality of light, composition, and gesture. Find a few photographers you admire and keep up with their work. If a particular photograph strikes you, ask yourself why and take it apart piece by piece. Never stop looking.
25.09.07 by Geoff Oliver Bugbee
The New York Times: United Parcel Service Worldport
Louisville, Kentucky – Ever wonder how the back end of slinging 1 million-plus packages effectively to their rightful destinations over night comes off at a flawless clip? A recent assignment for The Times put me in the jumpseat with a brown-clad veteran driver, into the belly of the UPS international air hub, and in the mix with one of their whip smart meteorologists while he tracked severe weather over Oklahoma City.
26.07.07 by Geoff Oliver Bugbee
The New York Times: Virtual Fashion
Clarksville, Indiana – When I arrived at his dead-end-street home to shoot a recent SundayStyles feature for The Times, Tom Faulkner 31, was thumb-scanning through a vibrant wardrobe on his Xbox 360, outfitting his favorite character for a WWE SmackDown vs. Raw wrestling match. Faulkner is one of those guys who has a meticulous eye for detail and often spends “way too much time”, he admits, dressing up his fully customizeable fighters before hitting the internet to compete with other like fanatics.
While I photographed Tom rifling through the dizzying array of attire possibilities on his 42-inch Samsung HDTV set, his 3 year-old son, Benjamin, watched a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse DVD on a (comparatively) tiny computer screen and occasionally ran around the living room shaking a pom-pom.
Click here to read the NYT story.
3.07.07 by Geoff Oliver Bugbee
Of the patients that I’ve been following here in Mumbai, India, Sahil Ravindra Ghadigaonkar, age 12, was singled out by ORBIS volunteer faculty and crew as one of the most interesting cases for surgery on the Flying Eye Hospital . Sahil was born with blue eyes which quickly began to turn to white. It didn’t take long for his parents to realize that he was, for the most part, completely blind. He was diagnosed with congenital hereditary endothelial dystrophy (CHED), a rare condition at birth which affects the lower layer of the cornea, leads to thick opacity, and in some cases—his especially—presents nystagmus, an abnormal jiggling of the eye. When Sahil was 9-years-old he received a corneal transplant in his left eye but he is still unable to cope with normal activities like going to school, playing with other children, or even crossing the road without assistance. For the last three years he has only been able to read by holding books very close to his face and to the extreme left.
In the coming days, I will be publishing the full story on Sahil’s case, from screening day at the local hospital to the moments where he walks off of the plane after surgery and post-operative analysis. For now though, all of us on the Flying Eye Hospital just want to see him engage in the one activity he wants to tackle first once he recovers his vision: A game of cricket.
15.04.07 by Geoff Oliver Bugbee
11.04.07 by Geoff Oliver Bugbee
