Tips to capturing aquarium images while traveling

There are amazing public aquariums for travelers to visit for hours of great enjoyment and learning. Some house more than 10,000 colorful and interesting wildlife species.

Photographers in public aquariums encounter a myriad of challenges; fish in constant motion, darkness, dirty glass walls, water which washes out even the brightest colors, and general bans on tripods, monopods and flash use.

Here's my public aquarium photography tips to assist in capturing great images from your visit:

Photography Exhibition: Philadelphia Museum of Art - Ralph Eugene Meatyard: Dolls and Masks

The Philadelphia Museum of Art has become one of the foremost exhibitors of fine art photography in the nation. Ralph Eugene Meatyard: Dolls and Masks, an extremely interesting and thought provoking exhibition is certainly worthy of this great institution.

This exhibition will run through August 5, 2012

Travel portraits: family, friends, and interesting subjects

When traveling with friends and family, most travelers eventually want to get a nice travel portrait or two. Travelers often try to capture interesting portraits of a local inhabitants.

Sometimes the friend/family exposure is dictated by where and when you're there. Sometimes the “choice” of background and light is made, in part, to keep a famous background in the photo, to say, “We were there.”

Sometimes you can choose the time of day your photographing, the background, and the way your traveling companions are facing, thereby control how light illuminates your subjects but more often, locations and schedules dictate exposure details.

The place and time for portraits of local inhabitants is rarely in the traveler's control, but the photographer can often control their position to help set up the portrait.

US Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit grants injunction against 1994 Illinois eavesdropping law

In 1994 the Illinois legislature amended their eavesdropping statute so that it applies to “any oral communication between two or more people regardless of whether one or more of the parties intended their communication to be of a private nature under circumstances justifying that expectation.” (Ill. Pub. Act 88-677 (1994) (codified at 720 Ill. Comp. Stat. 5/14-1(d)))

The law was intended to circumvent an Illinois State Supreme Court decision (People v. Herrington, 645 N.E. 2d 957 (1994) which held that “there can be no expectation of privacy by the declarant where the individual recording the conversation is a party to that conversation.”

Since then, the ACLU in their suit, “American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois v. Anita Alvarez has been seeking to have the scope of the law narrowed.

The ACLU had intended to implement a “program of promoting police accountability by openly making audio and audio/visual recordings of police officers without their consent when: “(1) the officers are performing their public duties; (2) the officers are in public places; (3) the officers are speaking at a volume audible to the unassisted human ear; and (4) the manner of recording is otherwise lawful.”

Snapshots versus Photographs — Taking versus Making Images

Periodically I receive emails from travelers who compare travel photographs made by me and other professionals, with their own, taken in the exact same place, why theirs look so different from the professional shots.

They typically send me an example of their photography, although, invariably I already know why there's a difference. It's not that they don't have the technical ability or knowledge to shoot wonderful photographs. It's ordinarily their approach, their conception of their photographs and the process to make them. Simply put, it's the difference between a snapshot and a photograph.

When I'm out touring I don't merely “point and shoot.” I look for specific composition possibilities to show off the natural beauty, the architecture, history, landmarks, the general location, the culture of the location, etc., before me.

I take time to get away from the viewfinder to see and experience where I am, rather than immediately point and shoot at each scene or landmark I see. If your trip is always revealed from the narrow viewpoint of your camera's viewfinder or monitor, you'll miss far too much of the travel experience. You'll miss the fun of travel, much of the interaction with what surrounds you, and you'll miss the best photographs too.

Smartphone Apps for Photography: PhotoCalc

Often, today's SLR/DSLR lenses don't have Depth of Field (DOF) markings, so you can't directly tell, in advance, what will be in and out of focus in your photograph.

When you're using manual exposure, are you experienced enough, and is your memory good enough to know what your exposure reciprocation table will tell you when you want to adjust your aperture and shutter speed to produce specific effects?

Have you been leery of using your flash in manual mode to obtain precise results because your flash exposure calculations are too difficult?

Have you had a difficult time determining sunrise and sunset information for the area in which you're traveling so you can plan those marvelous “golden hour” photos?

Reduce your TSA and CBP airport hassle and angst with Global Entry

It isn't often I write a pure travel article in the blog, which has absolutely no photography content, but I felt that this information is so important for any traveler or travel photographer, that I had to include it here.

Like you, I'm decidedly not a terrorist!

Like many, I travel frequently for work and leisure, and like many air travelers, I'm unhappy with TSA's (Transportation Security Administration) and CBP's (Customs and Border Protection) approach to security, which lumps me together with criminals and terrorists to be scanned or frisked, in order to fly to my destination, as if I'm a public enemy.

I know many leisure travelers who have substantially reduced the frequency of their air travel due to the hassle of TSA's and CBP's “one size fits all” approach to security, they consider too onerous, too time consuming, too unpleasant, a waste of their time, and a poor utilization of taxpayer dollars.

There is a program, administered by Customs and Border Patrol, which can eliminate much of the frustration, angst, and hassle of going through TSA security, plus, if you're a US citizen or resident alien returning to the US, from another country via air, CBP passport control and customs.

Photography Exhibition: The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston - Silver, Salt, and Sunlight

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, periodically has terrific photographic exhibitions. Silver, Salt, and Sunlight; Early Photography in Britain and France is definitely one such exhibit.

This exhibition will run through August 5, 2012

“The invention of photography in 1839 was a pivotal achievement that changed the course of cultural history. The early years of the medium were rich in experimentation. As each process and technique was invented, artists enthusiastically explored new possibilities for visual recording and expression. This exhibition celebrates the golden age of early photography in France and Britain, the two countries in which the medium was simultaneously invented.

Introduction to White Balance for Digital Camera Users (Part III): Gray Card or White Card?

In the last week I received many emails asking which is better for measuring white balance accurately via a digital camera, a white card or a gray card, so I'm adding an unexpected Part III to my series on White Balance. (Part I, Part II)

Without knowing it, they've asked a question which has an technical answer, though not one they're expecting, and an unexpected practical answer too.

Let's go back to Part I of the series and review what white balance is:

"White balance is the process of adjusting color casts, so that objects which appear white to human eyes/brains are rendered white in the photograph by the camera."

To put it more simply, photographers set a digital camera's white balance to get the colors in images “right,” where the images' colors are what photographers' brains tell them their eyes are seeing.