Exposed DC

for the love of DC photography

Night Sky Photography for Beginners

By

Blue Hour Moonrise by Pablo Benavente
Blue Hour Moonrise by Pablo Benavente

When you think of astrophotography, you probably think of mind-blowing Hubble images, but you don’t need a billion dollar space telescope to image the night sky. In fact, most hobby photographers have all they need already in their bag, or can cheaply rent from a local camera shop. And right now you have a unique opportunity to get started. Comet ISON has been visible with the naked eye just before dawn for the last few days, and may get even brighter before it reaches perihelion, its closest point to the sun as it swings around, on November 28. If ISON manages to survive its close encounter, you might get a second chance to catch it in camera over Thanksgiving weekend.

Here’s some history about Comet ISON, discovered in September 2012, its current status, and where you can find it in the sky.

Or try your hand at night sky photography almost anytime with the moon, which was full on Sunday night and will start to reveal its shadowy craters as it wanes for the next couple weeks. To get you started on your first night sky shoot, we asked some practiced local photographers, Phil Yabut, Brett Davis, Brian Mosley, Pablo Benavente, and Exposed’s Sanjay Suchak for their advice.

Exposed: What do you like to photograph in the night sky? 

[Read more…]

Friday Links

By

11/6/13 crescent moon by Kevin Wolf
11/6/13 crescent moon by Kevin Wolf

This week we have newspapers standing up for photographers, an erupting volcano fly-by, and the Japanese rockabilly scene.

  • Re-imagining old photos is the new black. Here we’ve got your classic photographs remade with Legos, and over here we’ve got your famous pics turned into selfies, of course.
  • “I remember taking off that day and swinging over the coast. I could see all that red lava just flowing down. A beautiful sight.” A World War II squadron flies by while Mount Vesuvius erupts.
  • With so many papers dumping their staff photographers, French newspaper Libération took a stand for the art, printing their November 14 issue completely without images. The editors wrote that they wanted to “show the power and importance of photography at a time when the industry is facing unprecedented challenges.” À votre santé, Libération!
  • NPR covers a new exhibit in São Paulo that documents the last vestiges of legal slavery in the Americas.
  • These students are embracing the old school, shunning digital photography for “antique techniques.” Before you bristle at film being called “antique,” these kids are actually learning platinum developing, used before the first world war. Can we sign up?
  • Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines last week, “thought to be the strongest storm to ever make landfall anywhere in the world in modern records.” Photojournalist Bullit Marquez was there to cover the devastation. Consider making a donation to one of these worthy non-profits (remember, send cash, not supplies).
  • Photographer Kyle Thompson used his social anxiety as fuel for a truly impressive self-portrait series.
  • When Denny Renshaw wanted to seek out a Japanese sub-culture, he turned to his Tennessee roots, and discovered the Tokyo Rockabilly Club.
  • And for your weekly tiger link (see #24), we have to parrot one of the commenters: “It’s all fun and games until you realize you’re about to Instagram your own mauling.”

How Was This Year’s FotoWeekDC Festival?

By

InstantDC at FotoNOMA by Joe Flood
InstantDC at FotoNOMA by Joe Flood

FotoWeekDC just closed its sixth annual international photography festival last weekend. Like any large event that tries to be inclusive of an entire community, it has both lovers and haters. One common complaint – that it didn’t focus enough on local photography – was addressed this year with FotoNOMA, which hosted work from a number of D.C. groups like InstantDC and the STRATA Collective. No one can get to all the exhibits, lectures, and workshops that FotoWeekDC offers each year, so we asked some of you what your favorite – and least favorite – parts were:

Jeff Norman:

I loved the whole FotoNOMA exhibition, but I think the women from WPOW had many strong images the invoked a lot emotion. And the Private Moon in America series from photographer Leonid Tishkov was brilliant! I also loved the images from the photographers from Strata Collective.

[Read more…]

Know Your Rights as a Photographer

By

Image by James Calder
Image by James Calder

Last Saturday, Baltimore police arrested Noah Scialom, a contributing photographer to the Baltimore City Paper, while they were breaking up a Halloween party. Scialom, as he reports, had identified himself as press and began photographing the incident. He left the house with the other party goers until he reached the sidewalk, and continued to take pictures, when he was roughly taken to the ground and arrested.

It’s a familiar story to anyone who regularly uses a camera in public, and a source of constant tension between police and the press, between the needs of security and the Constitutional rights of citizens. The National Press Club held a discussion in October on the subject as part of their Free Speech Week, inviting photographers, lawyers, and even a representative from the D.C. Metro Police Department to share their thoughts.

So what rights do you have to record in public? While the answer seems straight-forward to most of us (if it’s in the public realm, we can record it), the courts are only just beginning to define the right through rulings. But this first step is great news for photographers. The nation’s founders probably didn’t predict the prevalence of smartphones in 2013, so having defined rules about how the First Amendment applies to modern-day recording devices benefits everybody. [Read more…]