‘Fall into winter on the Kenai’ photo contest
The Redoubt Reporter is holding another in its series of reader-submitted photo contests.
Photos will be judged and winners selected by a three-member panel. After each contest closes, we’ll publish and discuss some of our favorites in the Redoubt Reporter. Some of the selected photographers will be invited to frame and hang their photos at a Redoubt Reporter June 2013 group photo show scheduled at the Sterling Highway Kaladi Brothers coffee shop.
The deadline to enter is 11:59 p.m. Dec. 1, 2012. All submissions must be in high-quality digital format. Submit no more than five JPEG images by email to redoubtreporterphotos@gmail.com.
Entry rules:
1. Our theme is “Falling into winter on the Kenai” and submissions must fit this theme.
2. Entrants must be amateur photographers who are residents of the central Kenai Peninsula.
3. Photographs can be of any subject fitting the theme but must have been taken of the Kenai Peninsula on or after Aug. 1, 2012.
4. If you submit photographs in which people are recognizable, you must also provide us with their permission for us to publish any such photographs.
5. Please do not submit portrait photos. Do not submit photographs whose content would not be appropriate for publication in a family newspaper. Do not submit photos of illegal subject matter. All such photos will be deleted immediately without notice to you and at the sole discretion of the editor.
6. Photographers must include their name, telephone number, email address, town of residency and each photo’s date, location and description of subject matter.
7. Submitted JPEG images should be of the best possible technical quality. Good technique and technical quality are important, but originality, creativity, interesting subject matter, artistic merit and good composition are even more important.
8. By submitting photos, you agree to our publication of them in the Redoubt Reporter newspaper and on our website. The Redoubt Reporter will have the right of first publication of your photos. However, you will retain the copyright for all other purposes and your name will be listed if we publish any of your photos.
9. Our decisions about what’s published or selected for exhibition are final and are admittedly subjective. Space is limited, and the judging panel and editor reserve the right to choose photos at their discretion.
10. Retain your original digital files of all submitted images. We are not responsible for preserving copies of your digital images.
By Joe Kashi, for the Redoubt Reporter
This week, we’ll answer some reader questions. It’s a sure bet that readers are particularly interested in matters that actually affect them enough to pose questions.
Street photography
Our first question concerns what is, or is not, permissible when engaged in “street photography,” that is, when taking photographs of strangers in public places. This is a broad question to which there is no one correct answer. The best that can be said is that it depends on the situation.
Street photography is a valid and culturally important part of photography, but is fraught with legal subtlety and potential peril. That’s the real reason why I so rarely exhibit photos that I’ve taken of other people, not that I’m anti-social (though reasonable people may disagee!).
It’s generally true that you can photograph people in public places where they have no expectation of privacy so long as you make no commercial use of their likenesses. However, that’s the beginning, not the end, of the story. It’s usually acceptable for journalists to use “street photographs” to report the news, and artists may display such photos in mainstream art exhibitions. Both uses are subject to some important cautions. Certainly, you may retain otherwise legal “street photos” for your private use.
However, commercial use of any person’s recognizable likeness, such as use in advertising or on a product like a T-shirt or coffee mug, is not legally acceptable without a signed “model” release authorizing you to use their likeness for a particular moneymaking purpose. Commercial use of a “street photo” without a model release can render you financially liable to that person should they file and win a lawsuit.
Even more seriously, trespassing or grossly invading someone’s privacy to take photos is often criminal, as well. By statute, photos of basically undressed children or of classified military and governmental facilities are hardly ever legally acceptable and are often criminal. Even internationally esteemed fine-art photographers like Sally Mann have run afoul of such statutes when publishing mostly nude photos of her own young children as part of critically acclaimed fine-art books.
Technically, First Amendment “rights” apply to government actions and to free expression. They’re less applicable in private civil lawsuits against a photographer where a private person is unhappy about a photographer’s actions — how the person is depicted by a photograph, publication or other use of their images without permission, unauthorized commercial use of their likeness, or a perceived invasion of personal privacy.
Some obvious examples might include holding a person up to ridicule by publishing images of unattractive momentary nose-picking, or invading their privacy by taking high-ISO telephoto shots of someone undressing within their own home, even though taken from the street. Whether such images are public or an invasion of privacy depends on how a judge and jury decide on a case-by-case basis. This is a highly controversial area where legal outcomes are unpredictable.
Depending on the situation and the law of any particular state, a person who has been photographed has a variety of private rights that too many photographers brush aside in their stress on claims of supposed First Amendment rights to take and use street photos. These private rights claims can cause potentially serious legal difficulties for photographers. Without an unrestricted release from the photo’s subject, fair use of even flattering street and public place photographs thus usually extends only to uses like art exhibitions and journalism.
Because any legal implications depend on the specific situation, I can’t give any legal advice here, only a general heads-up to be alert to the many possible problem areas. See your own attorney about specific situations.
Dark rooms
No, I’m not referring to the proverbial darkroom in which rolls of film and photo prints were processed but I am referring, rather, to the difficulties encountered when taking pictures of people in dim indoor lighting. It’s certainly a common problem, in fact one recently raised by a person who reads this column every week.
The first issue is rather obvious: The light’s dim and it’s difficult to accurately focus and expose the shot. The second concern is evident only after the fact. Photos shot in dim interior light tend to look either flat, with muddy focus and little tone separation, or harshly contrasty, depending on the nature of the interior light. A third problem is that people, especially sugar-charged children, tend to move and blur. No single technique completely solves the problem. What’s needed is a comprehensive approach. Let’s first look at appropriate equipment. In a later article, I’ll discuss shooting tips and post-processing software techniques.
Here’s what I’d consider.
- First, decide whether you want to use flash or available light. The flash units built into most cameras, even digital SLR cameras, are not sufficiently powerful to reach more than a few feet. If you really need a powerful flash unit, then consider buying an external unit that mounts in the hot shoe found on better cameras, including most dSLR cameras. This may be the least expensive hardware solution but has its own drawbacks, including disruptiveness, extra bulk and weight, as well as typically harsh-looking results.
- I prefer using available light wherever possible, and that means good high-ISO performance is key. Unless the interior light’s so bad that using an external flash unit is unavoidable, available light tends to produce more natural looking, better photos. Let’s first consider the sorts of camera equipment that does well under these demanding circumstances.
- Low-end consumer cameras and cellphone cameras can’t handle low light very well, nor can the small-aperture kit lenses usually shipped with basic dSLR cameras. Typical consumer compact cameras and cellphones use small sensors that perform poorly in dim light at the necessary high-ISO sensitivities. To consistently use available light to advantage, you’ll need a larger sensor camera capable of taking clean images at higher ISO settings.
- Sensors have improved considerably in the past few years. As a result, more recent large-sensor cameras, particularly the Nikon D5100 and D7000, Sony NEX-5R, Olympus’ OM-D (E-M5), E-PL5 and E-PM2; and Pentax’s K-5, K-5II and K-30 all perform quite well up to ISO 3200 or even higher when you save your images in an RAW format and do a little post-processing on your computer.
- Older camera models, such as the Nikon D80, Sony NEX-5, and Pentax K10d, aren’t quite as good at the needed high-ISO settings. If you do a lot of dim light photography, then upgrading to a newer camera body may help a great deal. Some excellent superseded models, such as the Nikon D5100 and original Pentax K-5, remain available at steep discounts and are exceptional values, as are some current midrange cameras, like the Pentax K-30, Olympus E-PL5 and Sony NEX-5R.
- Among premium compact cameras, these cameras do reasonably well up to ISO 800, perhaps even up to ISO 1600: Canon G12, G15, S90, S95, S100 and S110; Panasonic LX5 and LX7; Sony RX100; Nikon 1 Series and P7700; Olympus XZ-2; and Fujifilm XR and X10 series. Newer models like the Canon G15, Olympus XZ-2 and Panasonic LX7 have both better sensors and also very bright lenses, with maximum apertures in the f1.4 to f 2 range. These are preferable if you insist on using a premium compact camera. I wouldn’t. If I were balancing cost, small size and low-light capability, then the obvious choice would be Olympus’ new E-PL5 with a Panasonic 20-mm, f1.7 lens. This highly portable combination has very solid image quality through ISO 3200.
- You’ll do better using a wide-angle to normal field of view lens that’s capable of sharp results at wide, bright apertures, like f2 or f2.4. The best buys are found among the 35-mm to 50-mm equivalent lenses with maximum apertures in the f1.8 range. These have a normal field of view that’s appropriate for the tight spaces typically found indoors and are usually much less expensive, yet sharper, than f1.4 lenses from the same manufacturers. Good current models include the newer Canon and Nikon 50-mm f1.8 lenses, the Panasonic 20-mm f1.7 (also fits Olympus), and Pentax’s 35-mm f2.4 models.
- Be sure that your camera autofocuses quickly and reliably in dim light. Most of the newer dSLR cameras recommended above include improved low-light autofocus
- Definitely use image-stabilized hardware. Few inexpensive bright lenses include image-stabilization hardware within the lens itself. As a result, cameras that include image stabilization built into the camera body, notably the Olympus and Pentax models mentioned above, will be much more likely to avoid camera shake at the slow shutter speeds that are usually unavoidable in very dim light.
Quick takes
- The Kenai Peninsula Photo-graphers’ Guild has images on display in the Cottonwood Gallery upstairs in the Peninsula Community Health Services Building on Marydale Avenue in Soldotna in November, with a First Thursday opening reception from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
- The Kenai Fine Art Center presents the second session of its annual free Fall Photography Workshop at 2 p.m., presented by Joe Kashi, intended for late teens and adults with some basic knowledge of photography. Workshop sessions will discuss important fundamental photography concepts and how you can apply them to improve photographs.
Local attorney Joe Kashi received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from MIT and his law degree from Georgetown University. He has published many articles about computer technology, law practice and digital photography in national media since 1990. Many of his technology and photography articles can be accessed through his website, http://www.kashilaw.com.
The Mouth of The Kenai 