Travel | People in Motion: action, lifestyle photography

“A lot of people put their intellectual concerns first with photography, but I think it is a discipline that is at first a visceral one. The primary aspect of this whole engagement with, and through, photography is to try to understand what your instincts are. Don’t go counter to that, learn what the feeling is. If your instinct says go left, then go left…The results will describe to you who you are. The visceral and intuitive side will combine to show you your intellect as a photographer.” – Joel Meyerowitz quoted in Lewis Blackwell’s recent book Photowisdom: Master Photographers on Their Art.

Above is my favorite image from the Newport Beach assignment last week. It is not likely one the client will use but it speaks to me -

Murphy Bartling and his friends were bodyboarding the famous Wedge at sunset (left), full manual on a D3 and careful control of the hazy (smog?) sunset light which gave great reflections. The intellect takes care of knowing that and knowing how to adjust and tune – the craft becomes natural so you can get it out of the way. As the light faded, Murphy stayed in the water, catching wave after wave. You would say it was too dark to shoot but I wanted to capture a tonal blur of the dark waves with the last light reflecting. Handheld with a 200mm lens, slowly panning him and exposing a tenth of a second….that’s what I was looking for…

Understanding the craft lets intuition take over when a spontaneous moment happens like this candid shot from the next day. Walking along the street I heard the sax player come out of the door a dozen yards behind me, turned, moved fast and quickly made some adjustments as I captured the little girl being serenaded.