Photograph © Jeff Pflueger 2010. All Rights Reserved

With the Winter Olympics in Vancouver in full swing, photographers the world over are eager to learn what it takes to capture great outdoor shots in extreme environments.

In the 20th episode of “Advancing Your Photography,” Marc Silber gets a chance to learn some of these tips as he sits down for an interview with acclaimed outdoor photographer and photojournalist Jeff Pflueger. Jeff’s work has appeared in publications such as National Geographic, the New York Times, Outside, Men’s Journal and Sunset Magazine, and his assignments have brought him to some of the world’s harshest environments.

Whether it’s traveling north of the arctic circle, up “first ascent” mountain climbs or down class 5 rivers, Jeff’s sense of adventure requires him to maintain a sense of both preparation and spontaneity. This experience infuses his expertise on the subject of photography with the determination and subtlety that are singular to a master photographer.

Watch the video and you’ll learn all about:

1. How to take proper care of your equipment - With a workplace that can be in sub-zero weather or at the mercy of white-water rapids, Jeff is well aware of the importance of keeping your equipment safe from the elements. Hear what he has to say about “babying” your camera and backing up your work.

2. The importance of preparation -  A photographer’s job is to make people interested, so the trick is to show them something new. For Jeff, the key to this is research. In the interview you’ll learn all about how Jeff gets himself ready for a shoot, and why he tries to become an expert in everything he photographs.

3. Jeff’s key piece of advice for beginning photographers - Hear what Jeff calls the simplest, most important piece of advice he offers to people trying to get into photography.

To see more of Jeff Pflueger’s unique advice on how to improve your photography, be sure to watch the latest episode of “Advancing Your Photography” with Marc Silber. Also, check out some of Jeff’s articles and amazing shots over at JeffPflueger.com.

Photograph © Michael Zagaris 2010. All Rights Reserved

In the latest episode of “Advancing Your Photography,” Marc Silber sits down for an interview with acclaimed rock ‘n’ roll photographer Michael Zagaris. As one of the most notable names in both the music and photography worlds, Michael has been the band photographer for acts like The Who, Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones, and is currently the team photographer for both the San Francisco Forty-Niners and the Oakland A’s.

In a career that most artists can only dream of, Michael has picked up countless stories of his days on the road with some of the world’s most famous musicians and athletes. His ideas on style, technique and composition are a unique combination of experience and talent, and his take on the art of photography is unlike any other.

Watch the video and you’ll learn all about:

1.  What it means to be called an “Inside-Out Shooter” — Michael has gained attention over the years for his unique ability to gain insight into his subjects and capture their most intimate moments. Find out how he does it.

2.  What is it like to photograph rock royalty? –  Many of this year’s Grammy nominees appear in Michael’s images: from Carlos Santana, Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton, to Madonna, Bono and Bruce Springsteen (who recently won the award for Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance).

3.  How do you “become what you shoot?” — Though it may sound like a puzzling phrase at first, Michael’s mantra of becoming what you shoot is central to his photography. Listen in on our interview to find out what he means and how you can use it to help strengthen your craft.

To see more of Michael Zagaris’ unique advice on how to improve your photography, be sure to watch the latest episode of “Advancing Your Photography” with Marc Silber. Also, check out some of Michael’s amazing shots over at www.WolfgangsVault.com.

Photograph © Chris Burkard 2009. All Rights Reserved

The latest episode of Advancing Your Photography (AYP) finds the Silber Studios team interviewing surf photography phenom Chris Burkard. At just 23, Burkard has had more success than many photographers twice his age. He has worked for over 35 national and international magazines, is the winner of the first annual Follow The Light Foundation grant, and has been the senior staff photographer for Water Magazine and Surfline.com. He also recently published his first book, The California Surf Project.

With little formal training, Chris brings a raw, youthful enthusiasm to his photography. His shots, whether they’re of surfers jetting through the curl of a wave or the sun rising behind a field of grass, show a unique ability to capture light and composition. In our interview, you’ll learn about Chris’s tips on how to elevate you photography to the next level.

1. Inspiration — The key to taking great photos, says Chris, is finding out what inspires people. Photographers are blessed to able to travel the world and bring little pieces of it back with them through their art, and your goal should be to inspire others to travel in your footsteps.

2. It’s all about the simple moments — Chris finds inspiration in simplicity. As a surf photographer, he prefers to use natural light and document surf culture with native scenes. One key piece of advice he offers is to shoot things and locations that are attainable so people can actually see themselves going there.

3. “The insect perspective” — In trying to get those unique angles, Chris sometimes uses what he calls “the insect perspective.” Get down beneath eye-level and try for a bug’s-eye view of your subjects. You’ll be surprised at the unique shots.

4. Think about what is really significant — Most photographers tend to believe what really matters is their own perspective of what they’re shooting. But as Chris says, many times it’s not what you the photographer are seeing, but rather what your subject is seeing, thinking or feeling. Considering this perspective reversal will increase your awareness and add a whole new layer of depth to your shots.

To learn more about Chris Burkard’s indispensable advice on how to advance your photography, watch the latest episode of AYP. Also, make sure to check out Chris’ site over at burkardphoto.com.

Alex Rodriguez in the dugout. Photo courtesy of Jamie Cohen.

Watch the video

In the latest episode of Marc Silber’s Photography Show, I travel to the Big Apple to interview famed sports photographer Jamie Cohen. Her work in the world of athletics includes calendars for NYC sports teams like the New York Rangers, the New York Knicks and a number of drivers for NASCAR. Most notably she has worked for Fox Sports over the last seven years, photographing some of the world’s biggest stars like Alex Rodriguez (above).

During the interview, Jamie offers some essential tips for those of us just beginning portrait photography as well as those who are seasoned veterans. For example, to capture unique images of iconic faces, Jamie has developed a number of tricks and techniques. One thing she likes to do is shoot her subjects “in between poses.” She’ll ask them to fix their shirt or adjust their hair, and as they break from a pose she manages to capture a more intimate, candid expression.

To see the entire interview, including some cool stories and behind-the-scenes footage of sports stars, as well as Jamie’s indispensable advice on capturing incredible portraits, check out the latest photography show episode.

“Black Dog’s Retreat,” the photograph Robbins and Walla used for inspiration. Photo by Tom Chambers.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what sort of song might it conjure? That’s the question behind the Emmy-nominated NPR program, Project Song, a weekly art experiment that seeks to merge the crafts of photography and music-making.

Produced by All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen,  Project Song invites musicians into the NPR studio to create music inspired by a collection of photos. They can pick from five photos and five words, and are then given no more than two days to come up with a song.

In the most recent episode, Chris Walla (of Death Cab for Cutie) and J. Robbins (of Jawbox and Burning Airlines) were featured, along with a collection of work from acclaimed photographer Tom Chambers. For the challenge, Walla and Robbins chose “Black Dog’s Retreat” (above) and the word “cerebral.” The musicians then went to work discussing the imagery and connotations within the photo, and then playing with sounds inspired by the discussion.

The majority of Chambers work revolves around the creation of photomontages, images that, according to Chambers himself, “illustrate the fleeting moods that can’t be captured by a traditional camera or seen by the naked eye.” “Black Dog’s Retreat” is a surreal example of how Chambers merges backgrounds, foregrounds and subjects from different pictures to create something completely new.

So it was the songwriters task to pick up on this. Within the photograph they found deep themes of desperation and the surreal, and it was with these feelings in mind that they attempted to create a song in the same spirit. The result, dubbed “Mercury,” is a fantastic compostion that manages to capture the photograph’s sense of absurdity and immediacy, or as Boilen puts it, “a song that finds hope in its despair. A bit cerebral, but full of imagination.”

In the end, Project Song offers a candid view of how some of our greatest artists see each other. It also gives an example of the fluidity of art, and how the mind of an artist can transform anything into an original creation.

To hear the song and see the full creation process for “Mercury,” check out the Project Song website.

Whoever said the sky’s the limit obviously didn’t go to MIT.

For about the cost of an iPod, two MIT students have sent a camera into near-space and snapped beautiful million-dollar shots of our planet. Justin Lee and Oliver Yeh spent a measly $148 on their contraption, which consisted of a Canon PowerShot A470 point-and-shoot camera, a styrofoam cooler and a weather balloon filled with helium. Their experiment, nicknamed Project Icarus, proves how a little ingenuity and careful planning can overcome even the tightest budgets.

The two students first had to figure out how to find the ingredients for their project through consumer-ready retailers. As they discovered, durable weather balloons (which can float as high as 20 miles up) are available on the internet and can be filled with helium at a party-supplies store for a total of $50. To solve the problem of low temperature in the stratosphere (-55 C), they wrapped the camera in hand-warmers and placed it inside a styrofoam beer cooler.

Then, rather than spend thousands of dollars on a state-of-the-art radio modem tracker, Lee and Yeh purchased a cheap $50 cell phone equipped with GPS technology. They attached it to the camera, and it updated them on its location via text messages.

Before the launch, on September 2nd, they also hacked the camera’s hardware and set up an intervalometer, a device which programmed the camera to snap photos every five seconds. The picture seen above was taken at 93,000 feet (18miles), the likely spot where the balloon popped and sent the contraption plummeting for 40 minutes back to Earth.

The resulting images, ranging from snapshots of cloud-specked land formations on Earth’s surface to hazy blue, sun-glazed pictures of Earth’s curvature, bridge the gap between science and art.

“This could be something big,” said Lee. “Imagine if the art kids and the science kids in high school got together to do something like [a space launch]. The fact that we were able to accomplish space photography on such a low budget and with minimal electronic modifications proves that it’s really possible for anyone, anyone at all, to do.”

So if you always thought it took a lot of money to capture great shots and be an innovative photographer, take Lee’s advice and just find an easier way. The world is out there — and anyone can discover it.

“Viaje a Giraradot, Colombia,” from Nereo: Images From Half a Century

The art of photography is about more than just capturing an image. It’s about telling a story. That’s the idea behind the new collection from world-renowned Colombian photographer Nereo Lopez Maria, who, in his 89 years, has told many stories.

“As photographers we are witnesses to the time in which we live; that’s why we have to tell the stories like they are,” said Nereo, who currently lives in Queens, New York. “I’m a photographer to recount life.”

Nereo: Images From Half a Century (available through Amazon for $40) features 63 black-and-white photos, each of which displays Nereo’s uncanny ability at capturing human emotion. The book covers only the first half of a storied career that has spanned six decades, yet it includes moving portraits from a budding master. Inside are photos from bull-fights, including one where hundreds of people are running away with mixed expressions of joy and terror, as well as sincere and moving portraits of young children, nursing mothers and the field-hardened faces of farm workers.

The collection also includes exclusive photographs of author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, whom Meza met in the early ’60s when he worked as a photo-journalist. The two would become life-long friends, and Meza would accompany Marquez on a trip to Sweden where the latter artist was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Images is the first book available in the United States to showcase the work of Nereo. And if it garners him any of the attention he receives in his home of Colombia, it definitely won’t be his last.

Here’s an example of the right shot, one of Marc’s school portaits.

School has started anew, and pretty soon kids everywhere are going to be sitting in front of a camera and immortalizing their faces for their school portraits in the yearbook. This is understandably a tense moment. After all, this photograph will be seen by everyone else and will be how all their crushes remember them in the years to come. So to prepare your young subject for everything from kindergarten pictures to senior portraits, follow these quick tips to ensure everything turns out flawless.

Rest

- A well-rested, fresh-faced subject will always take a better picture than someone with bags under their eyes. Plenty of sleep will also make them more comfortable and relaxed in front of a camera.

Hair Cut

-A recent trimming usually leaves hard lines, so tell them not to get a hair cut right before the shoot. This will also leave ample time to grow a more natural look.

Makeup

- It’s called Cake-face and it has ruined more photos than you can imagine. If you can’t tell when to say when, test it out on a close friend or loved-one. If they can’t tell who you are anymore, you’ve got too much make-up on.

Clothing

- Everyone remembers the goofy kid who wore the tight leather shirt and a clock around his neck. Don’t let them be that kid.

Background

- Some school photographers will let you choose a background color. If possible, pick something that contrasts with their outfit or matches their eyes.

Hat Hair

- Boys like to wear caps, but many are unaware of the mess that’s left when they take them off. Make sure to keep the hats at home before unveiling your child to the world.

Practice

- Before the shoot,  have your kids practice sitting, posing and smiling in front of the mirror. This way they know what expression looks best and what to ask of you, the photographer. If your child is having his or her portrait taken, practicing a smile beforehand will make it look more fluid and natural sitting for a picture.

I had a very enlightening talk with Ken Rockwell this afternoon about focusing in on composition.  He said that whereas painters have rules they go by, their objective is to put elements into the painting, building on each for the overall composition; photography on the other hand is more about taking things out of the shot.  But then how do you arrive at a really powerful shot?

We got into this discussion by talking about my interview with Chase Jarvis, Ken mentioned that he had posted a reference to his iPhone shots, “he can get better shots with it than all the expensive equipment many photographers use, or get hung up on. What makes him so able to see and shoot those shots?”

We interrupt this discussion for an important message from Chase about getting iPhone shots…

We return you to our discussion…He said it would be insightful to have photographers talk about why they took the shot, how they came to compose it, what made it a strong shot. This of course brings up Edward Weston’s definition of composition as “the strongest way of seeing.” Oxford defines strong as powerfully affecting the mind, senses or emotions; intense; clear or prominent; distinctive.  I think we agree that a strong photograph has those qualities, but exactly how do you get there?

Ken went on to say that there are some rules, for example, you can have out-of-focus elements in the background and this works, but it’s confusing to the eye to have out-of-focus foreground.  Strong contrasts of light and contrasting elements work too. Edge burning of the print works.  But what about getting these points (and many more) all together in one place? He said, “There are books and resources about the technical aspects of photography and there are books showing photographers work, but no one has really put together a good resource for composition.”  This struck me as important questions to add to interviews on my Photo Show, “how do you compose your shots? Can you take us through the process step by step?”

I can hear the protests –”you’re trying to make the art of photography too clinical”– but if it has been done with painting, why not with photography?

So Ken, thank you for helping me to see how answering this question for our viewers would be an essential addition to the mission of Photo Show: Learning how to express your strongest way of seeing, week by week and shooting in between. What do think?

The entrepreneurial neighborhood of Palo Alto

Something is in the water in the neighborhood surrounding Emerson Street in Palo Alto. View map of neighborhood.

This is the neighborhood that’s brought us Google. Paypal. Facebook. HP. Java. BarCamp. Among other things.

But the entrepreneurialism doesn’t end with the big tech names. Gordon Biersch, a popular chain of microbreweries, started on this street.

I first learned about some of the entrepreneurial activity happening in the shadows of bigger companies back when I first took my car to a little garage in this neighborhood back in the early 1990s. If you visit Ole’s Car Shop you’ll meet Ole Christensen. This is no ordinary mechanic. He was so sick of the management systems available to car mechanics that he wrote his own in Microsoft Access and Visual Basic.

He’s not the only guy who has a college degree that’s coming up with new ways to run small businesses in this neighborhood.

On Thursday I went roaming around the neighborhood looking for other entrepreneurial stories.

I met up with Mahmut Keskekci. He’s worked in a small retail store, Richard Sumner Gallery, in this neighborhood for 23 years. He moved here from Turkey and has a degree in Electrical Engineering. What does he do now?

He frames Silicon Valley’s most expensive artwork at the shop he now owns, Richard Sumner Gallery. Just a couple of weeks ago he had a million-dollar Picaso in his shop. Today he’s hosting professional photographer Marc Silber, blog, who swears by Mahmut’s work.

I met up with Mahmut and Marc in the shop and videoed them. Here’s Marc talking about his photography and why he loves Mahmut’s work. Mahmut told me he does framing for the local Stanford University hospital, and local museums, among others. The video gets a little choppy, cause I’m using my cell phone but you get an idea of Mahmut’s philosophy. I restarted the video and we continue the discussion of Marc’s photography and Mahmut’s framing work.

This afternoon if you drop by the gallery you’ll meet both Marc and Mahmut at 3 p.m. for the opening of Marc’s exhibition.

Anyway, more photos from my walk around the neighborhood are on my Flickr feed along with some snaps I made of Larry Lessig. Maybe I’ll see you over at the yogurt shop this afternoon. Who knows what kind of entrepreneur you’ll run into there!

I’ve just completed a new ebook: Focus on Beauty, it’s available for download, here:

Click to download, also subscribe to my Blog RSS while you’re at it.

This ebook is made up of two Photo-essays I did for Gentry Magazine of the Silicon Valley and surrounding area. It actually covers bits of my work from 1964 to the present. Briefly, the story is: After showing my portfolio (with images shot from all over –Paris, Mexico, Vermont, etc) to the magazine’s publisher, she asked me if I could go out and capture shots of our area of the valley. My immediate answer was “of course!”

However, it’s sometimes easier to spot photo-worthy shots elsewhere than right under your nose, but I approached it with the idea of finding places as though I had landed in a foreign land. The results were, I believe interesting, and for me fun. For example, I thought it would be great to get the shot of the polo ponies in action right in a residential area and so went to the Menlo Circus club during a game; but on the same shoot I also found that disarming shot of the horse posing for me in her stall. I also added in some of my classics like the shot from 1964 of my 7th grade class room.

There’s real satisfaction in being able to summarize my view of this remarkable area and present it to you, I hope you l enjoy it as much as I did taking these shots.

Marc

This is going to be a huge year, here’s some of what’s ahead:

More Photowalking. Met with Scoble the other day, as he mentioned...

    Also deserving credit is Marc Silber — we spent a couple of hours today at a Peet’s just brainstorming and talking about what we want to do in 2008. Hanging out with creative people does     rub off and does make life richer…

We’ve got some super-cool plans for expanding Photowalking to the next level, more shows, wider coverage…stay tuned.

Studying Ansel Adam’s Photo series

A project I’m working one right now is bringing to life the masters though their children/grandchildren. For example, I just spoke with the wife of Kim Weston—son of Cole and grandson of Edward—one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century. Ansel would be the first to give him the credit for his being a major force behind photography becoming recognized as art. We’ll be visiting the Weston homestead with the rich history of three generations of amazingly talented photographers.

I’ll expand on this by taking up the six part Ansel Adams Photography Series, highlighting and bringing them to the 21st century. He is the man when it comes to the technology of photography, and he would have embraced the digital age, in fact he wrote

“The challenge of the photographer is to command the medium, to use whatever current equipment and technology furthers his creative objectives, without sacrificing the ability to make his own decisions…”

It’s going to be a great year with so much to learn and see. We’ve got many workshops and ways to really expand your skills and creative objectives…

Sometimes if feels like I was born with a camera or must have had one in the crib—it does seem that photography has always been a part of my life. Like most kids in the 50s I started with a Brownie Bullet, which like Ma bell phones you could get in any color as long as it was black. I shot tons of pictures with this camera. But one day I graduated to 35mm—yes, an Argus C3—now that was cool, the real deal just like the pros. I had really arrived.  My Uncle Sambo taught me to frame a shot by showing me how the branches of a tree would add a border to the image. Those were magic words to me.

Needless to say I continued to progress, each new a benchmark was a huge awakening for me (like learning to develop my own negatives and make prints—now that was real magic!)  This continues to this day—learning some new point in Photoshop for example.

Each of these steps opened up my ability to express myself on the blank canvass of a print and fill it in any way I envisioned. Ansel Adams taught me to look through the viewfinder and see the finished print—even framed and on the wall.  I do love to show my work and see how others view what I saw; I must say it is a thrill to pass that on to others.

The magic continues and with it the expression of art as a way to broaden the view of life, to step out of the mundane and see what lies beyond…

Here is the Photowalking we shot a few weeks ago at Long Ridge Ranch, just click on the image below and you’ll go right to the video. Hey, it’s only a bout 6 minutes but you might learn a thang or two (yes, you can also view the whole 60 or so minutes) While you’re at it grab a copy of my ebook below.

Cheers, Marc

I’m getting my ebook completed Taking Memorable Photos, I’ll have it posted soon, I do mean soon. Along with this you’ll see a photowalking at one of my favorite spots in the bay area Long Ridge Ranch This is the visual and live accompaniment to the ebook. I’m really excited about the new direction of fine art photography, breaking out of some of the old conventions and having a lot more fun with it. Flowing with giclees and bold frames, making these pieces come off the wall (some may say they are off the wall)… but this is a live subject that grows. stay tuned…

London has been the hub of beauty and the amazing for countless ages. It’s been the place to go to recharge your creative batteries. I spent a great deal of time looking, looking, looking (that’s what photographers do!) at her many museums and galleries and made some interesting observations about the convention of fine art photography versus art in general. Suffice it to say, I see the need to broaden the art aspect of photography with perhaps less of the “fine” (restrictive) conventions. Remember, photography as an art form is still quite young compared to for example painting and still has a lot of growing to do. More to follow, stay tuned…