Surviving the Elements: Part One-COLD.

In light of this recent cold snap (-16 at our house yesterday morning), I thought it might be a good time to start a little series on how to protect your camera from the elements. I've been meaning to do this for a while and now seems like as good a time as any. Every year, I get a handful of e-mails from people wondering how to protect their camera from extreme cold or heat, humidity, dust, snow, and a bunch of other conditions that are hard on cameras. It also seems to be one of the biggest concerns that people have when I teach workshops. 

Yes, the world can be hard on cameras. But some of the roughest situations also offer some of the best images. So instead of just leaving your camera tucked away safely at home, there are a few simple things you can do to help it survive the elements. In this installment we'll cover COLD:

• Keep the batteries in your pocket. Cold eats up batteries like an angry little hedgehog eats...um...I have no idea what hedgehogs eat. Hedges, I guess? May be not. I have no idea. Anyway, cold is bad for batteries. In sub-zero temperatures you can pretty much watch the battery meter plummeting to zero. Usually the camera will die just before you get the best shot of the day. If you can keep the batteries in your pocket (preferably an inside coat pocket close to your body) and then put them into the camera right before you start shooting, you can get a lot more life out of them. Some people try to keep the whole camera and lens tucked inside a warm coat, but this can cause condensation on the lens or viewfinder, which can then turn to frost when exposed to the cold again. Not ideal. And even more problematic, if that moisture gets inside the lens and body it can create spots on the sensor. By keeping just the battery warm you avoid this problem. It also helps to have a few batteries to rotate in and out of the camera. If one gets cold enough to die, switch it for a fresh one and warm it up, they'll usually recover some power as they thaw and can be used a little more later on. Especially if I'm shooting with a tripod, I get the entire shot lined up and even focused before I pull the battery out of my pocket and put it in the camera. The warmer it stays, the longer it will last.
• Carry a drybag (or a big zip lock freezer bag). Obviously, a drybag is great for protecting the camera from heavy snow fall or other precipitation in the field. But there's a less obvious function it can serve. It's important to protect a cold camera from condensation when you bring it back into a warm space like your house or car. If you bag and seal it outside in the cold dry air and then leave it in the bag indoors until the camera has warmed up to room temperature you can avoid getting any condensation on the camera. A weather proof cloth camera bag is not enough. You really need a fully waterproof/airtight container for this to work. (A pelican case can work great for this too, but drybags are a much cheaper solution.) Condensation on the outside of a camera or lens is mostly annoying, but relatively easy enough to clean up. Condensation on the inside of a lens or on the camera sensor can cause water spots after it dries. Those spots will then show up in all your other images. This is a real bummer (but fixable, watch for another post about sensor cleaning later in this series).
• Change your strap. If it's cold enough that you're concerned about your camera, it's a safe bet that you're not out there in your cut-off jeans and a sleeveless Mötley Crüe t-shirt. In fact, you're probably wearing something rather bulky and something on your hands (gloves, mittens, old socks with holes cut out for your thumbs, etc.). This can make slinging the strap for your camera over your shoulder a whole lot harder.
  Now, let me preface this advice by saying that if you talk to ten different photographers, all ten of them will have a different idea about the ideal camera strap. This is just my preferred method. Try it and see what you think. I like to run two small pieces of cord through the strap mounts on each side of the body and knot them each into a loop. Then I use small clips to connect the shoulder strap to those loops. Now instead of wrestling the strap off of your shoulder and getting hung up on your hood and thrashing around like a drunk monkey trying to punch itself in the back of the head, you can hold the camera, unclip one side of the strap and slide it neatly off your shoulder.
  Added bonus: You can also completely remove the strap for long exposure shots where just the slightest breeze can cause the strap to shake the camera and ruin your shot. And finally...
• Don't leave your camera in the car. Cameras can get cold. That's fine, but when they truly freeze you can do some real damage. There's a tiny amount of liquid in the LCD display on the back of a camera (and I believe in some sensors) that can, under very cold conditions, freeze and crack the glass. This is bad. And expensive. I've never heard of it happening while a camera is outside for even a lengthy shoot, but it can happen over a long night in a very cold car. This problem can easily be avoided by not leaving your camera in the car. The same is true at the other end of the spectrum when your car becomes a broiling summer inferno of camera melting rage. Perfect segue. Stay tuned for another post in this series about HOT.

The New Year.

Wow. I blinked for a second and it was 2013. Right before I blinked it was Thanksgiving 2012. I was eating turkey and little carrot tarts and sweet potatoe pie and then BAM! It was 2013. And it's not like it's January second or something. We're well into it. It's the eighteenth. Damn it, now it's the twenty-first. How does that keep happening? Well, a much belated Happy New Year to everyone. (P.S. Pretty glad that Mayan-Calendar-End-of-the-World deal panned out for the best. Congrats on that one, everybody. We handled that one really well...for the most part.)

Every year, that little patch of days after New Years and before the year gets into full swing is my time to reflect. It's introspective and centering and it puts my whole next year into perspective. I look back and figure out what went well, what didn't, what I intend to differently this time around. That sort of thing. Turns out 2012 was a kind of a big one. My business grew (maybe more than I was ready for, but that's another story); I expanded my offerings to include graphic design, logo development, and illustration; my truck passed the 200K milestone and kept rumbling along, I became an uncle. And, oh yeah, I got engaged (see above). That was kind of a big one. Snuck that in right at the end of the year. For any one that knows us: yes, it was about time. I know. **Sidenote: Not bad for a self-engagement portrait, right? Do you think I can shoot the whole wedding myself? I think I can do it. Sarah is dubious.

Already, 2013 is shaping up to be no slouch of a year either. For one thing, we bought a house. Okay, we're buying a house. Turns out that's sort of a long process, but we're into it now; accepted offers and inspections and insurance quotes and everything. All the crazy things that come with being a home owner. I'm going to be a home owner. I am alternately ecstatic and terrified. For the most part, I still feel like a little kid and I can't believe that people are letting me do all these things that real grown ups do. For example: I still can't believe that they let me drive a car. And I've been doing that for well over a decade. I have these sneaky little moments where I think I better not mention it to anyone because for some reason I'm getting away with it. I don;t want to ruin it. And then I remember that I'm almost 30. THIRTY. 3...0. And that sounds like the age that a real grown up would be. So I guess I must be a real grown up now. Weird. Who saw that coming? To those that know me: yes, it's about time. I know.

Well, I'm mostly rambling at this point and frankly I'm even losing the coordinates a little. I guess that's what happens when you get to be my age. My real point is this: 2012 was Awesome. 2013 will be Awesomer. I can't wait. Stay tuned for some great new stuff coming up in the next couple weeks. More design, more photos, more awesome.

Thanksgiving.

Just a quick photo from last week before we head off to New Mexico (where, apparently, there is no water) for Thanksgiving with my brother, sister-in-law, and new nephew, Simon. This photo was taken in the little building around the artesian on the west side of Ashland, where clean potable water flows out of the ground twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Incredible. A few years back, when we lived in a little house with no running water, this is where our water came from. No need to boil or filter or anything. Just fill a jug and take it home. Shooting this photo reminded me that I am thankful for many things: for family and friends that love and care for me, for being a working photographer in a tough economy, and for living in a place where clean drinking water just flows out of the ground. Not everyone has that. Not by a long shot. So, to whom it may concern: thank you.

P.S. Lots of people have asked how I got this photo to turn out the way it did, so watch for a tutorial on how it was done (a.k.a. how to freeze motion with flash), sometime later this month. In the mean time, have a happy holiday, everyone.

Did you get my good side?

I've been doing a lot of portrait work in the last couple months and I've been noticing a common thread that runs through almost every session. This is certainly not new, but I've just been paying closer attention. And I've found that almost every shoot seems to contain a conversation that goes something like this:

Subject: Okay, make sure to get my good side.

Me: Okay, no problem...which one is your good side?

-OR-

Subject: Okay, just don't get my scar in this.

Me: Yeah, of course not...so, where exactly is your scar?

-OR-

Subject: You can photo-shop this, right?

Me: Sure...but what would you like me to change?

And let me follow that up by saying that I haven't been out documenting a herd of Ug-o's. It's been normal, attractive, real people. To my eyes none of them have had anything to be embarrassed about. It's all an issue of confidence.

As a photographer, it's also interesting that everyone has entrusted to me, a relative stranger, their insecurity; the part of themselves about which they feel the most self conscious. They obviously feel the need to bring it up, as if I have clearly seen their hideous deformity, but am too polite to mention it. To them it's the elephant in the room. I take this as a compliment; that my subjects feel comfortable enough to divulge these nagging self doubts. But I am often left wondering why they feel this way in the first place. In almost all of these situations, I have not noticed what they perceive to be their biggest flaw until they point it out. And even then, it has never stood out to me as an issue. It's not as if anyone has come in and said "Okay, let's do these photos, just don't get this third hairy, ear growing out of the middle of my forehead."

Ultimately, I feel a little bad for everyone, knowing that they have this thing about themselves that is always hanging around in the background, undercutting their confidence. And the great irony is that, for the most part, it doesn't even register for the other people around them.

All cards on the table, I will admit to not being fond of having my own photo taken. I have a weird tendency to let my left eye lid sag, and I often adopt an awkward grin that makes me look slightly creepy and dim-witted. It's hard to describe, but let's just say that it's not all together flattering. It is my great and sincere hope that I only make this face for photos, because if I'm walking around like that all the time...I don't even want to think about it. I am also not impressed by images that in anyway capture the back of my head, where apparently the ratio of hair coverage to vacant scalp is rapidly becoming 1:1. I do not like this. So to my subjects, let me say this: I'm with you. You're not alone. I get it.

But I would like to propose that we start to change the way we think about ourselves, taking comfort in the fact that, for the most part, others don't even see the flaws that we each obsess over. What if we started to see ourselves as others do? What if our scars and wrinkles could be marks of a life well lived instead of blemishes to hide from the world? What if we flaunted what we were most proud of or rather than trying to conceal our insecurities? What if we loved ourselves?

Let's do that instead.

Another Project.

Some still life shots for a new photo installation project. More to come. Stay tuned.

Okay, One More Farm.

I was up at Spirit Creek Farm near Cornucopia, Wisconsin, this morning for what will probably be the last farm photo expedition of the fall. The main part of the growing season is fairly well behind us now and the possible snow fall this evening seems like a good end-cap for the year. This has been a great fall of learning about our local food producers and how they're working to feed our community. Thanks to the Sauter-Sargent's and everyone who found the time to make these photos possible.

Like every farm visit, this morning was educational. I learned about what it takes to grow cabbage, and what it takes to turn that cabbage into sauerkraut, and what it takes to build a certified kitchen. But the real stand out lesson of the day was this: the personal habits of male goats are appalling. Appalling. I'll just leave it at that.

More Farms.

I made it out to a couple more farms at the end of last week and the beginning of this week to get the a few more images in the series I'm shooting for Northland College on local food producers (see a couple posts down for some of the earlier shoots in the series). Above are Steve and Landis at Hermit Creek Farm and below are two shots of their beautiful produce. Below that are the McCutchens at Angle Acres Farm and some of their heritage breed livestock. Thanks again to all the farmers who have taken time out of their busy schedules during a critical part of the growing season to help me get these photos. You folks are all amazing. Keep up the great work.

Update on 2012-09-26 14:38 by Bob Gross

Okay, I couldn't resist: one more cow photo. I shot this right before she blew a big snot rocket all over the camera. Turns out that stuff is a lot harder to get off of a camera than I thought. So it goes.

Lincoln & Elise.

It's a been a crazy week, but I managed to fit in an engagement session on Tuesday evening for Lincoln and Elise at Houghton Falls. This is one of my favorites from that afternoon. Great place to shoot and, of course, great people. Gotta love that combination. Congratulations, you crazy kids.

Farms.

These are the first in a series of photos I'm shooting for Northland College of the local farms and farmers who are providing sustainable foods for the campus cafeteria. This project has been amazing. Great people, beautiful places, and, of course, amazing food. Before I get too far, I want to give a special thanks to all the farmers who have a made time during a really busy season to help with this. You guys are a amazing. Above are Todd and Kelsey from River Road Farm. And below is the lettuce they're growing.

This is Chris Duke of Great Oak Farm with his laying hens, and below are his bees.

And then, the two photos below are a soy bean field I passed along the way. I'll probably get sued by Cargill or Monsanto for even photographing these genetic mutants. In fact, there's probably a man in a Monsanto cap slashing the tires on my car right now.

While it still makes for an interesting photo, this is text book monoculture: massive fields of the same subsidized crop devoid of ecological balance and nutritional value. It's crazy that we call all three of these things farms. They are not the same. Not even remotely. After walking around at River Road Farm and Great Oak Farm constantly surrounded by a diversity of life, this field of soy feels like the surface of the moon. Even stranger is the fact that we as a society have decided to aid and abed this version of agriculture that serves us least while we place nearly insurmountable road blocks in the path of the others. Agribusiness has played us all for fools. And, sadly, it worked. Time to open your eyes, everyone. Time to change.

And now, back by popular demand, actual photography.

The staff at Sun Printing isn't just any old staff, so theyre not getting just any old staff photos. I love companies that have the stones to do something a little different. Here's a little peek at a couple of the portraits coming out of the photo-shoot today in beautiful Wausau, Wisconsin. These are for their new website, which let me tell you is going to be sweet (they showed me the top secret files, I can't say more or they'd have to kill me). Needless to say, it's going to be a little more light hearted than the previous version. It's been awesome to work with the folks in their creative department to plan and pull off this shoot. Lots of great ideas bouncing around the room. Watch for more in the next couple days.

Interesting...

 Last Friday's post was an intriguing view into the actual interests of you, the devoted readership of the Hired Lens Blog. The post, containing a photo of me with a black eye and a bloody nose (both of which were produced in a little program called Photoshop, sorry to disappoint), was far and away the most visited page in the history of this site. I always thought the "most popular" title would fall to some other page, but no. It is clear that cute babies and striking portraits and photography tips (or just great life advice) are not what you come here to find. Not at all. I've discovered that what you, my beloved readers, truly want to see is photographic evidence that I have indeed received the savage beating so many of you apparently think I deserve. I also found it enlightening that no one (including my loving partner, Sarah) cried "photoshop!" but instead assumed that yes, of course Bob got mercilessly pummelled by someone. That just makes sense, when you think about it. Thanks, everybody. Your confidence is overwhelming.

While surprising, this new information is ultimately very useful in plotting the course of this blog into the foreseeable future. Give the people what they want, right? Therefore, when I'm in Wausau later this week for a photo shoot with Sun Printing, I'll tell the man pictured below (creative director/rugby aficionado Craig Bieri) that his massive and intricate tattoo makes him look like a little pansie. Should be interesting.

Wish me luck. Please keep reading, I'll post photos. I swear.

Friday.

Do you ever have one of those weeks that feels like you've been punching yourself in the face for the last 5 days? Man, something about this week has felt epically long. And I can't even put my finger on the exact reason why. Whatever the cause, time has been creeping past. C R E E P I N G. It's not even that it's been particularly bad. Just the usual ups and downs of working for a living (which, P.S., I would really rather not do anymore; how exactly does one become a member of the 1%?). But today is Friday. Making this afternoon officially, as R&B sensation Robert Sylvester Kelly puts it, "the freakin' weekend." And I am, in fact and with due haste, 'bout to have me some fun. So, have a good two days of not-working, people. And enjoy these randomly selected photos, that in no special order show the story of nothing in particular. Weekend. Bam.

Jake & Bridget.

I don't shoot a lot of weddings anymore. There are a lot of reasons for that, not the least of which is the amount of time it takes to do it really well. The actual wedding, while still a lot of work, is really kind of the easy part. Then comes hours in front of a computer processing and sorting images, doing touch ups, ordering prints. It's a lot.

But every once in a while a wedding comes along that's just too interesting to pass up. That's how I ended up in the parking lot at Anglers All at 4:30 a.m. last Friday morning standing next to a man named "Big Jim" when he looked out at the lake and said, "It's a little lumpy out there."

That was accurate; it was lumpy out there. And at 5:10 a.m. we were scooting around the break wall at Second Landing and bashing our way through those exact lumps out to the light at the tip of Long Island for Jake & Bridget's wedding.

It was still cloudy when we left the landing and there was a pretty stiff breeze, but at the island, with the anchor down, and the bride and groom standing on the front deck, the sun poked through the clouds for a perfect dawn wedding followed by a little champagne on the beach. Congratulations, Jake and Bridget, not only on your recent nuptials, but also on having one of the most memorable weddings I've ever shot. Well done.

Special thanks also go out to Katie and Dave Gellatly of Solstice Outdoors for the use of their boat, which, for the record, I have re-christened the H.M.S. Awesome. You'd have been proud of me, Dave; I didn't even crash it into anything. Nothing big, anyway.

The Classic 50mm.

The 50mm prime lens (meaning a fixed focal length of 50mm rather than a zoom) has been an unparalleled photographic work horse since the invention of 35mm film. It's often referred to as a normal or standard lens and it used to be the regular kit lens included with most camera bodies. A 50mm offers a happy medium between wide-angle and telephoto and, usually, a fast aperture (typically 1.8 or 1.4) that gives you the option to shoot in low light or isolate the subject with a sliver of sharp focus. It's simplicity encourages good technique, it's price is approachable ($100 to $500 depending on features and brand), and its versatility makes it potentially the only lens you'll ever need.

Now, before I get too high and mighty about this let me say that I am terrible at taking my own advice. This post is supposed to be about simplifying, about using your equipment to its fullest rather than buying something else. It's about truly mastering the basics rather than just upgrading your gear. I, on the other hand, have often done the opposite.

Over the past decade, I've bought and sold more photographic equipment than most small camera shops. At one point I even sold one 50mm lens and then promptly bought a different one. Out of desperation and nagging insecurity, I have several times attempted to buy my way out of photographic slumps and creative dead ends. It almost never works. I tend to travel with more camera equipment than clothing. I have been known to take multiple cameras for a "relaxing" afternoon at the beach. The back seat of my car is like a drifting dune of photo equipment, ebbing and flowing from driver to passenger side and back again. This is partly because I'm an idiot, but also because I fear that with out lots of fancy equipment on hand at all times I will miss a great photo. This is almost never the case. When I look back through my archive, I find that most of my favorite images were taken with minimal (and often cheap) equipment at times and in places where a huge camera case would have only held me back.

That in mind, here is my resolution: I'm going back to shooting with a 50mm...most of the time. Now, I have to hedge my bet a little because I know I will have clients and shoots for whom the 50mm just won't be quite enough. I'm not going all Kung Fu Master and leaving my worldly possessions behind to simply walk the earth. But I am going to try to get back to basics as much as I can. And shooting with a simpler rig is a great way to do that.

I find that bare bones equipment forces you to be more intentional about composition. It forces you to zoom with your feet rather than your fingertips, to look carefully, to think about angles, and to pay attention. PAY ATTENTION. It creates challenges that you have to think through rather than skirt around. In short, it makes you work a little harder, but it makes you better. And it rewards you with images that you wouldn't get any other way.

 So here's to the classic 50mm, long may it reign.

Senior Portraits? Book Now.

Listen up people: if you're interested in booking a senior portrait session (or any portrait session for that matter) with Hired Lens Photography, contact us soon because the calendar is getting pretty darn full. July has been packed, August is almost all booked (I only have two openings left towards the end of the month), and September is already filling up fast. And for anyone interested in doing something really different, I've got a couple new locations in the old bag of tricks for this season. Where are they? I'm not going to ruin the surprise, but trust me when I say that they're cool. Call 262.305.9187 or go to the contact page to book your shoot.

P.S. Last year, we had a couple people who went for the underwater senior portrait challenge but due to some bad weather, some bad luck, and some super cloudy water, we had to scrap the idea. So it goes. But I haven't given up. I'm reissuing the challenge and offering a 15% discount again for anyone that uses one of their portrait settings to do an underwater photo. If we have to abandon the plan because of bad conditions, you still get the discount. Any takers?

Wood Spirit Gallery.

I'm just finishing the editing on a new batch of photos I shot for Wood Spirit Gallery a couple weeks ago. April and Jarrod are making some really beautiful things using some very traditional methods. As always, the really fun part of this job is talking to people and learning about what they do. I learned a ton during this shoot just by watching them work. For example, Jarrod uses a pole lathe to make bowls. It's an ancient technique that dates back to the 9th century (maybe earlier) when the Vikings were using it to make ale bowls. I understood the basic concept of this tool before this shoot, but this was the first time I'd actually seen one in use. And let me say it's a cool system. Very simple, but effective, especially with an artisan like Jarrod at the treadle. Check out their site for more info about what they make. And stay tuned for some more interesting photos in the next couple weeks.

Gone to the Races.

The first real car I ever drove was a race car. I was ten or eleven and my cousin Jason was racing dirt track stock cars at the time. His car was pretty much exactly like the one in the last photo in this post. What possessed a man who spent all his free time working on his car to then allow that car to be driven by a ten year old, I will never know. But he boosted me in through the window, clipped me into the five point harness and crouched on the passenger side holding onto the roll cage while I drove for the first time. It was incredible. I'm not what you would call a stock car fan, but from that day on there has always been a little soft spot in my heart for dirt track racing. It's not like the big NASCAR events. It's all little teams of two or three guys working in garages and little shops and backyards, building a car on nickels and dimes, and giving it hell every Saturday night because its fun. And you can tell they're loving it.

Jason stopped racing a long time ago and I hadn't been to a track since he hung up his driving gloves, but yesterday I had a free night and Sarah was out of town, so I grabbed a camera and went to ABC Raceway in Ashland. If you've never been before, let me say that short track dirt racing is a quintessentially American past time: It's loud. It's dirty. And it's not quite like anything else I've ever seen. Like any new sporting experience, the key to really enjoying it is to pick someone to cheer for. I was rooting for the guys from Lakeshore Sales and Service since they replaced the brakes in my truck last week. Whoever you cheer for, win or lose, the fun is in the drama.

Since this kind of racing is so classic, I decided to shoot it in black and white with a heavy film grain to give it a more timeless look. These shots could be from any one of a thousand tracks on any summer Saturday night in the last 50 years. That effect, which roughly approximates a classic black and white film called Tri-X, also helps to cover the need for high ISO and cancels out the weird color combinations that come from a mix of halogen, tungsten, and sodium vapor stadium lighting. It's a very different feel than the rich colors and smooth gradients I usually try to get. It's not the right look for everything, but for this, I think it's perfect.

Kraut, Curtido, & Kim-Chi. (& Pesto...& a couple other things.)

Over the past couple weeks, I've been working on some new photography for Spirit Creek Farm in Cornucopia, Wisconsin. If you're not familiar with their products, Spirit Creek specializes in lacto-fermented foods (read this if you're not sure what lacto-fermented means). They're also making really delicious garlic scape pesto now, too. Great stuff. I've been a huge fan of their curtido for a while and, beyond being a brat-grilling must at our house, their kraut was also a Good Food Award winner in 2011 and 2012. That's no small achievement.

I love food photography like this. Partly I think, because I love prepping and plating the food for the shoot (real chef's are probably cringing at what I've done with these, but I'm still proud of them). There's a little part of me that thinks I should have been a chef. Maybe in my next life.

Busy week.

Wow. It has been a busy frickin' week. Awesome, but busy. I was all over the map, thematically and literally, and next week shows no signs of slowing down. Plus, summer is now, beyond the shadow of a doubt, in full swing. I can tell because my forearms and the tops of my feet are a deep, swarthy tan. My legs, however, are still the delicate lily white of a man who wears long pants to work every day. If I wear shorts right now it looks like I'm still sporting a snug pair of freshly bleached thermals. The contrast is astounding, maybe even appalling. In photographic terms, I'd estimate the variation to be somewhere in the range of 8 full stops. Yikes. I need to find a little time to get some daylight on those puppies. Now that I've over-shared, here is a random smattering of this weeks photographic highlights. Rock the weekend. You've earned it, people.

 

Airplane? Yes, please. And some aerial photo tips.

Yesterday afternoon, local pilot Bob Breunig took Julie Buckles and I up over Chequamegon Bay to get some photos of the sediment cloud coming from Fish Creek in the wake of last week's epic storms. The photos are going to be used to promote restoration projects along the Fish Creek basin to prevent future erosion of this kind. Great cause, and I always love getting up in a plane. Thanks for a great flight, Bob.

Several times in the last few years people have come to me out of the blue (pun not originally intended, but now I sort of like it) and asked if I want to shoot photos of something from an airplane. Does a platypus lay eggs? And just in case you don't know the answer to that question, it's "Hells Yeah!" I wish I could say that these aerial shoots are carefully planned, that I make them happen by working through my extensive network of contacts to arrange an airplane and pilot and all that, but that would be...well, pretty much flat out lying. To be honest, these chances just keep sort of falling in my lap. I love my job.

That said, I've had enough random cracks at it to figure out a few things that I do every time that seem to be good advice for airborne imagery. So here we go, the Hired Lens Photography Guide to Not Royally Failing at Aerial Photography:

1.) Ask if you can take the door off. Crazy, right? But some small planes and helicopters that don't have pressurized cabins can fly without a door on the side where you intend to be shooting. Nothing messes with a photo like shooting through a dirty, hazy or glared window. Best solution get the window out of the way. Obviously, this isn't possible on all planes and not all pilots want to do it. There are still some tricks to shooting through glass that can make for a better photo (yesterday, I was shooting through a window and you can see some reflections from the glass, but I was able to minimize them and get them into areas of the photo that don't matter, watch for a blog about how to do this in the next week or so). If you can take the door off, be prepared for the fact that this will make take-off and landing a little scarier as you watch the run way whizzing past next to you. Also be aware that communication in the air will be much harder due to the noise, even with the airplane headsets on. It's not a bad idea to come up with a few basic hand signals to alert the pilot when you want them to turn, when you want to make another pass over something, and when you're done shooting.

2.) Ask if the windows are polarized. Normally, I use a polarizing filter just about any time I'm shooting outside. But if the plane has polarized windows (which some do), and the answer to the above question is no, you'll have to take your filter off. Two polarized surfaces in combination create a trippy mess of colored lines and waves to rival any Pink Floyd laser-light show. Unless your project is a visual ode to Timothy Leary you're going to want to remove the polarizer.

3.) Pack an obscene amount of film. And by film, I mean memory cards. And by pack, I mean make sure that when you take your seat in the plane you can easily switch them without digging through a bag that will be strapped in a seat just out of arms reach behind you. Particularly in helicopters and especially when the door is off/open, everything in the aircraft needs to be secured to keep it from exiting through afore mentioned open door or bashing around in the cabin. This means that if you fill a card and your extras are out of reach, you're done shooting (insert sad trombone sound here). A card case in a shirt pocket is a good way to avoid this problem. I use one made by Pelican, the eyelet on top makes it pretty easy to teather to some other part of yourself to prevent unintentional ejection and its big enough to not be fumbly.

4.) Use a wide lens. Tips four and five sort of go hand in hand. The real key here is to limit the impact of camera vibration as much as possible. The longer the lens, the more even minute camera shake will appear in the images. A wide lens will be able to create sharper images even while moving fast and shaking quite a bit which small planes do.

5.) Choose what seems like a ridiculously high shutter speed, then go two stops faster. Besides focal length the other major factor for reducing the evidence of motion in the camera is shutter speed. Choose a shutter speed that should freeze the motion your experiencing and then over shoot it by a couple stops just to be safe. It's a real shame to get back on the ground and find out that your images were almost sharp. Almost...

6.) Eat lunch after the flight. A few years ago, I got to the airport and the first thing the pilot asked me was "how strong of a stomach do you think you have?" Great question. I've flown a lot and done a lot of stupid things on my own that have given me a pretty iron clad stomach, but I have to admit that on one particularly rough flight in Northern Minnesota I came way closer to booting in my camera bag than I ever expected. The flight patterns that make great aerial images easier are not always conventional and looking through the viewfinder the whole time doesn't help. If you do have a weak stomach consider one of two options: stay out of aerial photography all together or plan ahead. Pretty much any pilot would greatly prefer that you pull a plastic bag from your pocket instead of redecorating their instrument cluster.

And there you have it. Now get out there and try not to hurt anyone.