I get excited and motivated when I run across a project that a photographer is working on which utilizes their talents and passion, as a photographer, to bring to light some social justice issue or in this case to show the positive we all have the ability to bring into this world. Take a few minutes and watch this video, then make the jump and I’ll throw some links your way so you can find out more about this great project.

Opening Our Eyes Trailer from Gail Mooney on Vimeo.

I love going out and photographing the mountain bike races or an adventure race here and there but it’s the personal projects that really get the juices flowing. I’ve always had a personal passion for social justice type projects. Projects where I use my lens to bring awareness to those issues that our society likes to believe don’t exist. One of my personal favorite projects was commUNITY. A project I worked on to bring awareness and celebrate Asian Americans within our local mid-western communities.

So when I ran across Gail Mooney’s project, “Opening Our Eyes“, I was blown away. What a wonderful project, and to take it on with her daughter, how wonderful! I can’t wait to see the full film when it is finished. You can bet I’ll be watching this project with anticipation.

Here are few links so you can read up about this project and Gail Mooney.

Here is the blog that Gail and Erin kept as they traveled the world.

Here is Gail Mooney’s blog covering her photography, film making, and all other aspects.

Here is the main web site for Kelly/Mooney Productions.

So keep a watch for this great documentary.

Remember, don’t just photograph what you’re getting paid to shoot. Get out there and photograph things that are personal to you, come up with some great personal projects to fuel that creative you!

~ William

I have become involved with a wonderful event to bring awareness and support for injured, abandoned and lost animals. Back in mid-May I photographed DINO’s MISSION Adventure Race in southern Indiana. At the race I met Brent Sanders and his wife, two wonderful people. Brent asked me about my photography, what I primarily photographed and then asked if I would be interested in an event being put together for October to support animals. I dug out my iPhone to look at my calendar and with juggling some things I told him I could be there, no problem.

The event is a 5k/15k trail run and dog walk that will take place October 9, 2010 at the Tippecanoe Amphitheater just outside of West Lafayette. For those that know, and those that don’t, this is the site that the local group of the Hoosier Mountain Bike Association (HMBA) built a nice 2 mile out and back trail. The Tails-n-Trails event will use this course for the run and dog walk. I will be attending to photograph the event with prints and digital downloads available via my web site.

I encourage you to come on out, run or bring your dog and walk. This will be a great event for a great cause!

More information and registration for the Tails-n-Trails event can be found on their web site.

I hope to see you there!

~ William

As a photographer you quite often here people talking about their camera. If only I had a better camera I would take better pictures, that picture didn’t come out the way I wanted it because my camera is crap; it just seems like everything that goes wrong is the camera’s fault. A friend of mine gets so caught up with the fact that “everyone has a camera and it’s so easy for them to take a picture they think they’re photographers”. In the wedding world they would refer to this as the “uncle Bob” syndrome. Sure with the great advances in technology cameras today are pretty good at making decisions for you, they make taking a photo easier and less complicated for those without the experience and knowledge of a photographer.

Professional photographers will tell you that the least important part of creating great images is the camera. Sure you need the camera to make a photograph but it’s only a very small piece of the process.

When Pro Photographer Chase Jarvis purchased his iPhone 3G he began shooting like crazy. Chase has always had a great following in the photography world due to his amazing talents as a photographer but another attraction people have to him is that he is completely open about how he creates his great images. On his blog you can find tons of great advice and behind the scenes videos about how he does what he does. But he quickly realized the value of the iPhone and started shooting everything with it and sharing what he was doing via his blog. After a year he put together a great little book of his results called “The Best Camera Is The One That’s with You“.

It’s an inspirational collection of his photography via the iPhone. What Chase discovered was by shooting with his iPhone it spurred his creative side even more, it challenged him to see things differently. When I finally purchased my iPhone I discovered the same thing and to this day I absolutely enjoy taking photos with my iPhone. It challenges me to see differently, to be more creative, to think about what I’m doing, to compose my shots in a way that I hadn’t had to think of doing before. In the beginning the photos I captured where so good that I even joked with my friends that I was going to get rid of my Nikon and just shoot with my iPhone. There was a trip I took with my buddies to Chicago that I shot way more images with my iPhone than I did with my Nikon. Heck I didn’t even get my Nikon out of the bag until the end of the trip, and even then I didn’t shoot anything with it worth keeping.

I have received so many comments on my iPhone photography that earlier this year, just for fun, I printed out a couple of images, 8×10, that some had told me they really liked and entered them into a photo contest. I didn’t tell anyone, to include the judges who are professional photographers themselves, that they were taken with an iPhone. The photos didn’t win anything but people where amazed when they learned they had been taken with an iPhone, even the judges where amazed.

Lee Morris over at Fstoppers recently posted this video of a fashion shoot he did using the iPhone as his camera. Now before you watch this don’t get caught up with his comments of not using expensive equipment as you’ll see him using pretty nice studio lights. The point of the video is to show what can be done with a camera one would think of as just a toy. Once again it’s about the photographer and knowing how to use lighting, composition, having a vision for what they want to create. There are many elements, experience, and knowledge that go into creating great imagery than just pushing the shutter release on an expensive camera. The final product of the shoot is included in the video but if you want a hard look at the stills produced check out their site with the whole story to include final results.

Now I’ll give you that the technology in today’s digital cameras have really boosted the ability of the novice to capture some really good images. Back in the film days the camera itself was relatively simple, there was some technology to help guide your shooting by helping to determine exposure. The critical piece in the film days was the film, how you stored it, how it was processed, what type of film you used, the ISO speed, and all the other little things to think about. For those wanting to just go out and shoot some photos of their picnic had to consider a lot more than they do today. With the modern digital camera the film is incorporated into the camera in the form of a digital sensor of some type. Everything is encapsulated into one unit and the end user doesn’t have to think about the type of film they want to use. In the simplest of forms they just set the camera to automatic and the technology will make all the decisions. For those wanting a little more control they can go ‘off road’ and set various camera controls manually. All of this has fostered the world of ‘everyone is a photographer’, but there is so much more to it.

So which came first, the camera or the photographer? I would definitely say the photographer, because someone had to have a vision of capturing the scene and thus the camera came along.

What are your thoughts? Post them below or share them via Twitter and Facebook.

~ William

There are very few photographers over the years that have reached immortal status. Photographers who’s body of work tell a story of how we’ve changed, how our society has changed, a history of us.

One such photographer is Julius Shulman, an architectural photographer who through his photography captured the greats of the modern architectural era such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Pierre Koenig.

Any time I can find a documentary about a photographer or photography in general I like to check it out. I find it very fascinating to hear how they thought, what went into their craft. One such great documentary done in 2008 regarded Shulman, his work and his story. I found excellent insight into how he began, what he thought and how he dramatically influenced architecture. He was a true pioneer in the photography field with his work showing how a photograph can cause change. His work was crucial in the startup of many an architects career.

If your looking for inspiration, if you want to see how photography can change our perceptions drastically, if you want to see how a positive attitude and the passion for your craft can change lives then check out the documentary, “Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman”. For those with NetFlix you can either stream it or get the DVD.

As a teaser here is the trailer for the documentary on this amazing photographer.

What other great documentaries or shows are out there that you would recommend for others to see? Post your recommendations!

~ William

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Two things that are great about this crew of filmmakers, one is that the equipment they use is out of some futuristic sci-fi movie, second is more personal to me but they hail from none other than Jackson Wyoming!

Curt Morgan and the crew from Brain Farm are spinning up some epic shots/films using their state of the art equipment. All HD cameras with a high tech gimbal system that is so advanced that it has to be registered with the U.S. Government. The system was originally designed to be used by the military to launch smart weapons, but Curt uses it attached to helicopters, trucks, snowmobiles, boats; you name it and they try to attache their system to it.

“I want to show a shot of a guy smoking a cigarette in LA and make it look like something you’ve never seen before. I have all these ideas, and I’m just starting to build on them. We’ve had some good success doing action sports, and these tools are amazing for shooting them. But I’m trying to figure out a way to move on.“

Check out the video to see more of what their doing and go on over to their web site to see some more of their work.

If after watching this you’re not inspired to get off that couch and go out and be creative, well then you better check yourself into a hospital because I don’t think you heart is beating.

~ William

For quite some time I’ve highlighted the emergence of video done up via HDDSLR, primarily with the Canon 5D MKII. There have been many a short film/video shot with this amazing camera. Now the game has changed, it has been taken to the next level. The entire episode of the season finale of House was shot with a Canon 5D MKII. Check out the teaser and then make the jump to hear a bit more.

This aired last Monday, May 17th, but don’t worry if you missed it you can catch it on Fox’s web site, they will provide it there next week. You can also catch it via iTunes.

The episode looks amazing, hard to believe it was shot with a camera which can be had for around $2,400. From what I’ve read the lenses used were Canon EF, including the 24~70mm 2.8 and 70~200mm 2.8.

With this major leap and previous other accomplishments the mix of still photography with video is going to open up a whole new world. These are very exciting times indeed to be a photographer. The two major vendors in this realm, Nikon and Canon, are blazing a brave and bold new trail for those with the vision to follow.

So catch House, see if you can tell the difference!?

~ William

Let me tell a story, once upon a time there was a photographer, who just happened to be at the right place at the right time, a major catastrophe. He grabbed his camera and went out to capture images of this major world changing event. Wanting to share these images with the world as quickly as possible he uploaded them to TwitPic and sent out the links via twitter. I mean why not, it’s the 21st century, we have these awesome social networking sites that can get news stories out to the world as quickly as it takes one to press the enter key. Anyway, he sends his images out to the world, before you know it another twitter user picks up on the images, downloads them, then resends them via twitter saying he is the owner. Then, a news service picks up on the images, grabs them, and before you know it the images are on the front of newspapers all over the world, giving credit to the supposed owner.

Now the real owner, the photographer at the beginning of our story, finds all this out and sues the news agency and others for copyright infringement. Makes sense right, but wait. The news agency turns around and sues the photographer, what did he do wrong!?

Well make the jump and I will tell you how this is a true story, what is going down and what this means to you if you’re posting to social networks.

The photographer here is Daniel Morel, a Haitian photographer who was in Port au Prince when the massive earthquake struck. To get a full account of what happened and where things stand with the whole mess check out the blog entry over at 1854.

There are many issues here, one that has affected photogs for a long time is the infringement and complete disregard for their copyrights. Another issue that is tied to the copyright issue is the new world we’ve created with social networking sites like twitter, flickr, and facebook to name a few. The over arching internet in itself has created a world where people just grab images and use them without regard to ownership, credit, and just plain copyright. As a photographer I am always cautious of where I put my images online. At the least I always put a water mark on the image, although it is not going to stop those who want to grab an image and just don’t care, it doesn’t hurt. Always read and understand the Terms of Service/Terms and Conditions, especially when it comes to the usage of your images.

My advice, and what I live by. Don’t upload your best images to sites other than your web site. On your web site, create it so people can’t download the images. Protect yourself, your images, and your copyright.

~ William

On Saturday May 1st DINO held it’s first official race of the season in Warsaw Indiana. The race was part of the larger Fat and Skinny Tire Festival taking place that weekend. The whole community was wrapped up in all things cycling and it was great to see. Unfortunately I didn’t have enough time to really check out all the goings on for the festival as I was there to focus on the DINO race. Maybe next year I can dedicate more time to getting up to the festival a day earlier and really get to check out the entire event. Check more after the jump..

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The big concern for the day was the weather. There had been rain go through during the early morning hours and predictions had called for the possibility of more rain. I arrived at Winona Trails about 11am, grabbed my gear and went to find the registration point to see what was happening. Upon entering the park where the trails were I was very impressed. There was a hard top trail coming into the park from what appeared to be the downtown area. One of the things I noticed about the community was the trails that seemed to have built around town. There was an air of bicycle friendliness. I took the short walk into the park to where DINO had setup the start/finish line. It was a wonderful walk, the park is just beautiful. Upon reaching the DINO setup I found Brian, DINO’s Director, and talked with him briefly about the course. He gave me a couple of pointers on some possible good places to get some good photos. So with that and my map in hand I hit the trails to scout out possible locations to grab some great shots.

After a short walk I came to a location that was near the start of the course, a rather technical part of the course where riders would come down a small hill around a turn. The location was wide open and gave me a great vantage point to get shots of the riders as they came down the hill and around the small curve. I did some test shots as riders went by warming up and getting to know the course a bit.

It wasn’t too long and time was near for the first race to start. The first riders would be the Pro/Elite1 men’s group which move fast and hard, so I knew they would be fun to watch go by, and to try and photograph. I knew since I was so close to the start of the course that the riders would still be in a tight group and that would prove a challenge to shoot, at least to get individual shots. It wasn’t long before I heard the siren at the start line go off and I knew the riders where on their way. It didn’t take long before I could hear the riders, they were coming fast so I prepared myself to start shooting. As expected they were still grouped rather tightly together, as they came around to me I started shooting. It took me a few shots but I started to get a rhythm down and capturing individual shots began to flow. I stayed at that location until the last category of riders went through. Looking at the map another location I wanted to try was one of Brian’s suggestions where the trail goes along a small creek. Before the race started I had oriented myself with the map to know that the trail I needed was just up over the a small hill in front of me and not much farther beyond.

I grabbed my gear and headed up over the hill, then proceeded down the trail and instantly ran into the small creek. I began walking along the trail and quickly recognized this location as a sweet spot to shoot from. I walked to the far end where the trail turned and then crossed the creek. Looking back from where I had walked the trail ran between the trees and shrubs, almost like running through a tunnel. This was the prime spot, I grabbed my 80-200mm f/2.8 lens and setup camp just along the trail in the grass. I sat down low and shot as the riders rounded a small curve and started towards me. Shooting at 2.8 gave me an amazing depth-of-field, the backgrounds where perfectly out of focus, some of the ground either around the ride or just in front of them would be out of focus as well and just made the image pop. It was a cream! The other great thing about this day was the light, it was magical. With the extremely overcast sky from the rainy weather gave me great lighting. With the wet ground, somewhat muddy on the trail, the overall feel of the images was perfect, somewhat dark and providing a great feel to each image. Compared to the DINO Tune-up race of a few weeks ago this was the perfect setup. The Tune-up race had been on a clear sunny day which provided for harsh light and shadows. I hate to say it but I hope more of the races are on overcast days. Sorry riders but this just provides awesome lighting and overall conditions for epic photos.

Another thing I learned about this course was that it was long. Even though I had stayed at the first location until all the rider categories had gone by, the Pro/Elite1 group had not gone through the new location I was at, they were still making their way around the course. Eventually the riders started to come around the corner. As they approached I began shooting, I shot several shots of each rider as the approached, shooting at 200mm. As they approached the images I captured where tightly cropped images of the rider and gave a great racing/high action shot of the rider. I stayed at this location and shot until the riders in all the categories had gone by at least once. The race was now nearing it’s completion, it was about 1:30pm by now and I knew the next race would start at 2pm. I had filled up one memory card and was down to about 200 shots left on my second card. At this point I decided to head back to my car and download all the images down to my Mac so I could have clear cards to use for the second race.

After downloading all the images, having a cliff bar and some water I headed back into the woods to find another location for the second race. I walked further back into the woods and found a sweet spot where the riders would come up a hill and around a curve. This would provide for a great action shot as the riders came around the curve and up the hill most would probably stand to peddle. Once again I did some test shots with riders that were still on the course, all was looking good.

The difficulty with this location was that I was so far into the course that I couldn’t tell when the race had started and just had to sit there waiting for riders to come along. Of course that took some time as well. Eventually riders began to come along, they would pass behind me, then go up and loop around eventually coming back in front of me. Once again I had positioned myself just off the trail, sitting so I was shooting up at the rider as they came by. I sat there shooting as each rider group went by and grabbed some great shots.

I sat at my position until no one was going by anymore, was the only way I could tell if the riders had all gone. So I made my way back to the trail head, walked to the car and packed up the gear. I was really impressed with the trail at the park and really want to make an effort to get back and actually ride myself. We had been extremely lucky that the weather held for the race, on the drive home I ran into some bad rain that was headed in the direction of Warsaw, so I imagine not too long after I left they would be receiving rain.

All-in-all it was a great day, another great race and I have to say the best shots I’ve gotten yet due to the awesome lighting. It was fun to see the riders go by, the Pro/Elite riders are always fun to see and watch. The only negative is that I didn’t get to hit the singletrack myself, but oh well sometime soon.

More photos from the day can be found on my web site.

Enjoy the images and hope to see you on the trail at the next race!

~ William

Mountain bike season is upon us here in Indiana. The first non-official race of the season was DINO’s Spring Tune-up. It is a chance for those who are considering racing to get out and test themselves and see if it is something they want to try. For those seasoned riders it’s a chance to get out and hit the singletrack in a race setting to prepare for the upcoming season. All around it was a great time with great riders and a gorgeous day.

*** UPDATE ***

Due to some people having problems getting the purchase options to appear I’ve decided to go with another vendor, Smugmug, to provide prints and download options. Smugmug will provide me with better options so I can make sure you get the things you would like in print and digital downloads. Smugmug also provides me with better options to incorporate the images into my main web site.

The images have been moved to the following address so please update your bookmarks. Images are ordered by racer number, which is displayed below the images. There are 3 unknown racers that are displayed on the last page of images, sorry I couldn’t make out your numbers.

prints.williamlsnyder.com

Thank all of you for visiting and the many great comments I’ve received regarding the photos!

Enjoy and if you see me at the next race say hello!!

All the best,
~ William

What is a number, we use numbers to do many things, get us to the Moon, to count, to tell time, to mark the passage of time, to measure an f/stop or shutter speed, and many other ways. One way that we use numbers that is personal to us all is in marking our age. Chase Jarvis has started working on a campaign of a series of short films for Russell Investments that explore the topic of RISK. Check out his blog entry to learn more about his thoughts on this campaign but for me watching the first short film about skateboarder Jason Southerland really hit a personal nerve. Check out Jason’s story in the short film and then make the jump to hear my thoughts on the number game we call AGE.

What really struck me when I watched and heard Jason’s story is his age. He is 40 years old and still pursuing the things in life that make him happy, specifically skateboarding. Most people would think he’s crazy, especially since you find out he has two kids. Most would think him irresponsible because of the fact he has a family and is still out there shredding up the skateboard parks. I mean come on, he could break his neck then what would happen to his family, who would take care of them?! Will you know what, I say GOOD FOR HIM!

Why is this so personal to me? Because I am Jason’s age, actually a few years older and over the years have met many people who think life seems to end by a certain age, mostly around 30. For some reason we seem to become programmed by society that as we grow older it means growing more responsible, giving up the wild pursuits of our youth, will I call BS. I am not delusional, I do understand that it is getting more difficult for my body to physically put up with some things, or it takes longer for me to recover from certain things. But as Jason talks about in the film we become more experienced, from our experience we have learned how to manage what we do, what risks we should take and what we should not take. It does not mean that we need to give up on the things we love doing, or to even try new things.

I have been following a made for the web TV series called The Season. The Season follows 5 athletes in their various sports for a season as they attempt to accomplish their various individual goals. One athlete, Scott Petett, is a hardcore mountain biker and aspires to race downhill at Whistler B.C. So you might be saying so what, will the awesome thing about Scott is he is a 46 year old family man and very successful chiropractor. Check out the below episode of The Season that highlights Scott and his story.

The Season Episode 5 from Fitz Cahall and Bryan Smith on Vimeo.

So what about me, what is my personal story. For me I feel like my 40’s have become the new 20’s. I have learned that no matter what age we need to keep on doing the things we enjoy and not just become the weekend warrior or the couch quarterback. I want to continue to get out and explore life, do new things and even take my life into a new direction. I have spent many years working in the IT field and now I’m changing direction. I decided a little over a year ago to seriously begin pursuing building my photography business with hopes of someday getting out of the land of cubicles and out doing the thing I am passionate about. Just last week I spent a wonderful week in Jackson Hole, WY snowboarding and doing photography. I have never before in my life skied or snowboarded, the only thing I had done in the snow was sled. I did not take baby steps, I jumped on the snowboard, road up the ski lift, which I had never done, and then came down a green line slope. No bunny hill for me! I look forward to the warmer months because it means I can get back on my mountain bike and hit the single track. Mountain biking is something I am very passionate about and try to do as much as possible in the warmer months.

So I challenge you, what are you doing with your time? You don’t have to be out doing adventure sports but just get out and do something. Shoot more hoops, ride a bicycle, go for hikes in the woods, travel and experience new things, go dancing, or maybe start-up that business you’ve been thinking about for years. We may be older but we have life experience to draw from which is extremely valuable so use it in a positive way.

Youth is only wasted on the young if you give up.

~ William