|
|
|
|
|
Behind The Lens
Stromatolites challenged me to visualize a world from three billion years ago, back before the sky was blue. I worked by twilight and moonlight, which required long exposures sometimes extended even more with specialized neutral density filters. To photograph an erupting volcano in Hawaii, I had to use a different kind of filter--for myself. I wore a respirator against the caustic fumes that corrode camera parts and lungs alike. Film can buckle in the heat near an eruption, and when it rains, water mixes with volcanic gases in the air and comes down as diluted battery acid. I tried to keep my gear covered, but in the end, when the lava flowed, I chose for photos rather than keeping cameras safe. Fieldwork isn’t always a struggle. In the warm waters of the Great Barrier Reef, I used a rig which on land was heavy and cumbersome: a digital Nikon camera in a Light and Motion housing with two strobes on articulated arms. Underwater it became a weightless window into a world of fluid motion, as I floated around coral reefs searching for early forms of marine life. Aerial photography is a high-speed juggling act that involves coordinating photographic opportunities with the movements of a plane--and making decisions fast. Working from the cramped space of an open Supercub, I attached gyros to my cameras to stabilize them as the pilot flew low through the turbulent air of Alaska’s wilderness valleys. With diatoms, by contrast, I had all the time in the world. I photographed these minuscule organisms on specimen slides the size of a fingernail using a polarizing light microscope to which I attached a camera body. I experimented with different filters and settings to achieve an impressionistic rather than a scientific rendition. Some of my exposures were so long that I could break for lunch while the camera recorded an image.
My camera kit now includes an Apple MacBook Pro laptop with editing software and external hard drives for storing images I download in the field. Digital capture has altered the way I work on location, enabling me to work out solutions to technical problems on the spot. But while it was exciting to see the translation of ideas into images in real time, it was even more rewarding to experience for myself the living wonder of horseshoe crabs, stromatolites, giant tortoises, and others--the subjects who had lured me on my journey through time. Photography Resources: Nikon USA: www.nikonusa.com Professional Support: www.nikonpro.com
A more detailed list of photographic resources and equipment used by Frans Lanting is featured at www.lanting.com/phototips_resources.html.
|
Scanning: Color Folio,