Cam&Lens		Canon EOS 30D & no lens info		Shutter:		1/2500 s
Flash:		Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode.		Aperture:		f/2.8
Create Date:		2008-03-25T17:29:28-05:00		ISO:		100
Image Number:		n.a.		Focal Length:		27 mm

Before our long hiatus, we started a series of articles called “Photo Dissections” to show you how some of the coolest photography out there was conceived and shot.  Today I’m going to go through the process of shooting one of my photos of a Florida wildfire last year.  This picture ran in a few different Florida newspapers, and it’s one of my portfolio pieces I use when applying for photojournalism jobs.

Setting Up the Shot:

Brush fires are a common occurance in Florida during the summer, but they’re still a big enough deal to draw crowds of onlookers and shut down roads on occasion.  This brush fire threatened to close the local interstate, and it would probably be a small feature in the newspaper the next day.  I called my editor and asked to take a photo.  He gave me the OK.

By the time I got my camera equipment together, it was the late evening.  The sun was setting lower in the sky, and the quality of the light was great - attributes which helped this photo out.

I tried to take the photo from ground level, but it wasn’t anything thrilling.  There was a cool older motel standing closeby, and images of cool shots on the top of Hollywood hotels flashed through my mind.  I saw a few people sitting up there watching the fire, so I went in to the lobby and asked if I could get up on the roof.  The staff agreed, and I went upstairs to take the shot.

The roof setting was fantastic and really makes the image. If there’s one takeaway you get from this, it’s the importance of looking for unique locations. To make your photography stand out, you have to be somewhere or do something original. I was the only photographer who got off street level, and it made the difference between getting published and getting cut.

The Settings:

Let’s take a look at the settings for the image again:

Here’s what you can gather. Between the smoke and the setting sun, the light level was low so I used a wide aperture (f/2.8) to let as much light into the camera as possible. But to get the back light, I measure the light on the background, not on the foreground. Compared to the foreground, the background was much brighter, so I was able to use a fairly fast shutter speed of 1/1000 of a second. This underexposed the foreground, and produced the backlighting effect.

Would I do anything differently if I shot this again? Yes. The image at full resolution is a little soft, and much of this can be attributed to the f/2.8 aperture. Remember - for uniform sharpness throughout a scene, smaller apertures (larger f/numbers) work better. Could I have used a larger aperture while still getting enough light to get a good exposure?

I shot this photo at ISO 100, which means that I could have gained more light by increasing my ISO. 400 or 800 would work well for a shot like this. In addition, I was shooting at 27mm, which means I was using a wide focal length. The wider the lens, the less effect camera shake has, so I could have comfortably dropped the shutter speed to as much as 1/60 of a second or so and been fine. A larger ISO and a longer shutter speed would have enabled me to use a much smaller aperture - f/12, even - to improve the sharpness of the scene.

Still, hindsight is 20/20. I’m happy with the result.

Outtakes

Here are some other photos from the shoot and the settings I used.

Cam&Lens		Canon EOS 30D & no lens info		Shutter:		1/1600 s
Flash:		Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode.		Aperture:		f/2.8
Create Date:		2008-03-25T17:30:28-05:00		ISO:		100
Image Number:		n.a.		Focal Length:		24 mm

Cam&Lens		Canon EOS 30D & no lens info		Shutter:		1/320 s
Flash:		Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode.		Aperture:		f/4.0
Create Date:		2008-03-25T17:39:14-05:00		ISO:		100
Image Number:		n.a.		Focal Length:		24 mm

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