F8 and Be There

I came across a great quote recently: "F/8 and be there." It's not a new quote and is attributed to the photojournalist Weegee. Apparently when asked how he takes such interesting pictures, Weegee was fond of saying "F/8 and be there." Oddly, this quote has brought with it some conjecture: "Why f/8?" some people ask. "Is there some mystical relationship between that aperture and not others?" "Why did Weegee not say "f/5.6 and be there or f/l6 and be there?" "Why is no shutter speed mentioned?" and so on.

Photographers are great ones for scrutinizing each other's camera gear, technique, film, chemicals, memory cards or whatever, in order to glean some morsel of information that we think might make us that little bit better. In doing so we often miss the most important point. If we take a step back from Weegee's quote we may find that the point has a lot more to do with the second half than the first: all technicalities aside, you've got to be out there doing it.

Weegee worked primarily at night - with flash. Speed is often the key in photojournalism and working with flash bulbs and, despite the name, a 4x5 Speed Graphic, having a seamless and speedy workflow is crucial to getting the shot. Simplicity is therefore the answer to a lot of potential problems. If indeed Weegee did stick pretty much to f/8, my opinion is it's because he found that f/8 gave him a good basis to work from and allowed him to be within the subject-to-flash distance he preferred. In other words, he found what worked best for his needs and perfected it. This is a critical point in photography - any type of photography.

Other photographers who had similar practices are well known. That other great photojournalist, Henri Cartier-Bresson, was apparently fond of using a shutter speed of 1/125 second and a 50mm lens. HCB liked to capture particular moments in time, what he termed 'the decisive moment'. A shutter speed of 1/125 second would give him that while also giving him a good range of apertures to work with for his usual subject matter in daylight (i.e. no flash). The 50mm lens gives a 'normal' perspective, similar to the human eye. Perhaps HCB wanted to capture exactly what he was seeing.

Ansel Adams, being a founding member of Group f/64, wanted, as the name of the group would indicate, as much in sharp focus as possible. To do so, Adams and others working in the 'straight' style, use the smallest f/stops on their lenses to attain the maximum depth of field. Edward Weston, another founding member of Group f/64, even once made a smaller aperture for one of his lenses that didn't stop down far enough (if my recollection of his 'Daybooks' is correct). Using cumbersome 8x10 view cameras and heavy tripods to support them, photographers like Adams and Weston found sharpness and a full tonal scale as the best way of realising their vision.

Interestingly, Edward Weston's son Brett, was never one to talk too much about art and technique, he was too busy out there doing it, or perhaps I should say, too busy 'being there'. This brings me back to my point; the greatest technical aptitude isn't worth a damn if you're not out there actually doing it.

Weegee simply found a method that worked for him; the important part was he was there. Adams and Edward and Brett Weston found what worked best for them individually and developed that. Weston's other son, Cole, who never did anything that remarkable with black and white - other than printing - for which he was a master, found his form, and how, when he started using the colour film Kodak sent his old man. Cole Weston became a wonderful and well-renowned color photographer, again, finding what worked best for him.

The photographic historian Nancy Newhall once said of Henri Cartier-Bresson, "He puts on his Leica as another man would put on his coat." It sounds like HCB spent a great deal of time 'being there'. So the moral of this little ditty is simply to get out and take some pictures, find what works for you, develop your style and keep at it. Perhaps we could adapt the quote to "whatever works best for you, and be there".

Matthew Smeal is a photographer and journalist, and occasional photojournalist, from Sydney, Australia. Please visit his website at http://www.matthewsmeal.com and blog at http://matthewsmeal.blogspot.com

ADD-ADHD Or Just a Super Smart Kid?

Since there really is no definitive way of diagnosing this so called affliction, the psychiatric profession has seized on a series of standardized, and highly subjective questionnaires to determine whether or not a child has ADD/ADHD. Observations from parents and teachers are also used in reaching a conclusion. Hardly a scientific process

Think about it. As a child, were you ever reprimanded for any of these?

• Nonstop talking.
• Dreaming: Sitting at your desk and staring into space.
• Not paying attention
• Being easily distracted. Trouble staying focused.
• Not listening when spoken to.
• Difficulty in remembering things and failing to follow instructions.
• Problems with staying organized, planning ahead, and finishing projects.
• Frequently losing or misplacing homework, books, or other items.
• Constant fidgeting and squirming.
• Leaving your seat often when sitting quietly is expected.
• Moving around too much, running, or climbing inappropriately.
• Always "on the go." Blurting out answers without waiting to hear the whole question.
• Difficulty waiting your turn.

You have? More than eight? Well land sakes, you've got ADD/ADHD!! Who says? Why the "experts" at the American Psychiatric Association who are very "expert" at hanging labels on anything and everything that has anything at all to do with human behavior. So just go ahead now and sit in the corner with a few of your peers:

• Bill Gates
• Lindsey Wagner
• Albert Einstein
• Eleanor Roosevelt
• Michael Jordan
• Ludwig van Beethoven
• Dustin Hoffman
• Terry Bradshaw
• Ansel Adams
• Ann Bancroft
• Alexander Graham Bell
• Dwight D. Eisenhower
• Abraham Lincoln
• Whoopi Goldberg
• Tom Cruise
• Elvis Presley
• Bill Cosby
• John F. Kennedy
• Prince Charles
• Alfred Hitchcock
• Napoleon Bonaparte

The list can go on to fill a nice fat book of fine print. So it would appear that ADD/ADHD is a gift, not an affliction!

WHY ARE CHILDREN DIAGNOSED WITH ADD/ADHD? AND HOW?
The number one reason for diagnosing a child as afflicted with ADD/ADHD (and the subsequent drugging of the child) seems to be for the convenience of parents and teachers. Their mental capacity often exceeds that of their elders who are frustrated in their inability to deal with it. These kids in turn feel frustrated because they lack the life experience, the acquired knowledge and education, and the motor skills required for matching their actions to their minds. They are growing asymetricallymentally as well as physically. It's something we all do in the process of maturing. It's no reason to drug a child!

ALTERNATIVE PHYSICIANS STRONGLY OPPOSE DRUGGING CHILDREN
Researching the issue, revealed very quickly that not a single alternative physician surveyed, among those who have demonstrated success in treating ADD/ADHD, has ever found it necessary to put a child on Ritalin to control this disorder. Instead, they have looked at, and identified the factors surrounding the symptoms producing the misdiagnosis of ADD/ADHD. These include, but are not limited to:

• Hearing & vision problems
• Learning disabilities
• Gifted child who might be bored in school
• Disgraphia, difficulties in writing
• Mental retardation
• Personality conflicts (with teacher or other students)
• Depression
• Childhood psychosis
• Oppositional defiant disorder
• Tourette's syndrome
• Autism
• Pervasive developmental disorder
• Instability at home (Illness, death of a family member, frequent moves, divorce)
• Seizures
• Lead poisoning
• Iron deficiency
• Medications
• Allergies
• Zinc deficiency, particularly in boys
• Chronic disease
• Thyroid disorder
• Substance abuse
• Sleep disturbances, or not enough sleep

ADD/ADHD A PHONY DISEASE
Reviewing this abbreviated list of possible causes of conflicting behaviors in children seems to definitively establish that ADD/ADHD is by and large a pseudo disease invented by interests intent on profiting from it. And it's no coincidence that expenditures for Ritalin and related drugs are up 122% over the past four years. These numbers will increase, possibly exponentially, every year, unless parents take control! The symptoms of this pretty much phony disease are generally simply a bunch of normal childhood behaviors labeled as a "disease" by psychiatrists either too myopic to see the real issue, too self seeking to care about over medicating kids, or simply too stupid to understand the underlying problem.

ONLY IN AMERICA!
What is also interesting is that ADD/ADHD is a purely American phenomenon, with 85% of the world's supply of Ritalin being used on American children, who are no different from children in other countries! In the opinion of Dr Julian Whitaker, one of the nation's leading alternative physicians, " Pediatricians, psychiatrists, and other doctors who are putting children on mood and behavior altering drugs are more dangerous to our society than illegal drug peddlers. They are destroying our children, robbing their souls, and mortgaging our future."

KIDS ARE KIDS AND ACT LIKE THEM. SHOULD THEY BE ANY DIFFERENT?
Kids get colds. They get tummy aches. They misbehave. Didn't you? But that's no reason to put them on drugs! Alternative medicine is swimming in safe, natural therapies for common childhood conditions that do not expose our children to life altering pharmacological substances.

The American College for the Advancement of Medicine has many doctors on its roster who successfully treat ADD/ADHD and a host of other chronic illnesses with safe, natural methods. By paying a visit to their website, anyone interested in finding an alternative physician in his own area can find one without cost or obligation, simply by consulting their roster. Visit LeQuadrillage.com for a direct link to the ACAM website and for more, accurate information on ADD/ADHD and a host of other largely misrepresented disorders.

How To Purchase A Camera For Professional Photography

Aspiring Steve McCurry or Ansel Adams? If you love photography, and want to make a career out of it, it takes a lot more than inspiration and an eye for creating fabulous photos. It takes solid training from a professional photography school and the right camera. This article helps prime you to choose the best first professional camera for your photography career.

Research, Research, Research.Your first step is to learn about everything you can regarding your subject: in this case, the best first camera for your photography career. Of course, take into consideration the top brands and prices, and read up on online reviews, and ask around to formulate the best working framework to start searching for a new camera within. No matter what you do, or how well you know how to bargain shop, this will be an expensive purchase, and thus, the more initial research you can do, the better off you will be. Treat it with the same respect you would offer a new car- after all, it will be the most significant tool of your career - apart from your talent, of course.

Immediate Needs. Next, consider your immediate need for this professional camera. Is it something that you want to play around with, need for photography school, or as your first career camera? Deciding what and how you will be using this camera for will help you consider what kinds of specific features, elements, and capabilities it should require.

Manual or Digital. The first of these camera considerations should, of course, be the most fundamental. Do you want a manual or a digital camera, or a camera that uses both technology? Almost all photography schools and professional positions will require that you have manual capability in your camera in order to understand beyond the automatic nature of our immediate photo-capturing world, how a picture becomes the picture that it does. Digital, on the other hand, allows you to easily and conveniently manipulate and print photos taken. Your best bet, if you can afford it, is always a hybrid manual/digital camera for any professional photography situation.

Features. Whichever kind of camera you choose, will determine what features you need to look for in order to get the best professional grade photos for your career. As a professional photographer, one should always remember in purchasing equipment for their career that as many options should be afforded to you in the rendering of a photo -no matter your type of photographer. You want your talent to shine through, and thus, you want to be able to control light through aperture, color temperature through manipulation, and use focus/movement technology to capture fast action shots to blurry movement. Aside from having these options, you always want to be able to have high resolution ability. For digital, this means lots of megapixels. For manual, this means the right lens.

Options. Aside from these basics in brand, price, features, function, and kind of camera; as a professional photographer (pre- or post-photography school), you should never buy cheap quality or nix options that will be imperative in your ability to shoot the best in photographs. This doesn't mean you have to have the best and most expensive camera on the market for photography school, or as a novice; but that you should always choose better lens material quality/brands, have protective carrying cases and gear, and include precious extras such as high resolution, high grade light filters, and focus features. Remind yourself as always that this is your career in photography, and to deliver prize-winning photos that compel-you require quality equipment and your camera is the most imperative piece in your toolkit.

Bierstadt Prints

Albert Bierstadt prints make great choices for those who love the North American countryside and wish to add it to their own homes. This article covers the works of this famous American painter in full and discusses why his art makes such a suitable choice as print for art consumers.

Bierstadt's prints and paintings cover the North American landscape in great detail with his charming touches of class that lifted him to the peak of the Hudson River School set of artists. Whilst they remain regular topics of study, with the likes of Church and Moran, it is Bierstadt whose career stands out tallest. To have Bierstadt mountain named after him in respect of the achievements and legacy of his career show quite what he managed to do through hard work and his natural passion for this subject.

The best works from a career which output around 4,000 paintings in total include the likes of Storm in the Rocky Mountains (Mount Rosa), Looking Down Yosemite Valley, Alaskan Coast Range, San Francisco Bay, Passing Storm over the Sierra Nevadas, The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak, Gosnold at Cuttyhunk and Indian Canoe.

The colour schemes and exceptional detail used by Bierstadt make his paintings suitable as art prints and stretched canvases as few get the chance to see his works in person at the various key collections currently housed in Cleveland, Seattle, New York, Boston and Vermont. The considerable number that the artist produced ensures that anyone can find an exact painting to their taste, be it with specific countryside and weather and lighting effects.

You can read more about Bierstadt prints at bierstadtprints.com.

If you prefer handmade reproductions, then enjoy these Bierstadt paintings at the Oil Painting Shop.

Commercial Photographer - Click To Clique

Ansel Adams, the renowned photographer from America, famous for his black and white photographs, had said, "Negative is the equivalent of the composer's score, and the print the performance". And the performance of a commercial photographer is best judged by the response the client gets on any advertisement he places in any kind of medium. By response, we mean the acceptance and the action taken by the target audience, to whom the ad is directed.

The work of a commercial photographer is different from other kind of photographers in the same fraternity. And this difference arises chiefly due to the fact that the work is meant to impress a target audience. The entire work of a commercial photographer is surrounding the target group which is basically a group of consumers or potential consumers for a particular product. Each product, service or any idea has a particular set of target customers which differs from product to product or service to service.

What commercial photographer shoots is basically meant for promoting this product or service or idea to the people who form the target audience for it. Although this form of photography involves similar equipments and has similar elements as compared to the other branches of photography, yet there is a big difference in the work of a commercial photographer and that difference is that he shoots to impress people while most of the others shoot to impress themselves, satisfy their desire to capture moments from life, to inform or to promote the institution of photography.

Life of a commercial photographer is quite challenging but it is also full of rewards. And these rewards are more in monetary terms than mental satisfaction of the professional. If your clicks clique well with the target group, you can expect more work, more projects and therefore more money flowing in.

Jack White is a specialist in Advertising photography and other kinds of photography. He has worked in close coordination with many an expert commercial photographer of UK and other countries. In his works he is presenting some of his observation on the role of commercial photographer in advertising photography.