Tuesday was an all-day bus ride from Guatemala City to La Ceiba, Honduras. Fourteen hours, with a bus change and layover of 2 hours in San Pedro, Honduras. Met our cab driver in La Ceiba and took the 45-minute ride up the dirt road to Las Mangas.

After disembarking in San Pedro my iphone was “disappeared” – slipped out of my pocket in the seat, and I was off the bus before I realized it. A “search” by the bus service personnel turned up nothing. Mysteriously I was not allowed back on to look for myself.

So much for keeping in touch by email – all of my contacts were on the phone, not yet in this new computer. Hopefully I’ll be able to restore everything from the backup when I return and get a replacement.

The next two days were spent teaching photo classes to the students at Guaruma, the school project here. Originally started as a photography school for the children in Las Mangas, the project now has expanded to include environmental awareness studies and English, and has a second location about 5 kilometers farther up the mountain in El Pital.

The project we created for the kids was a simulated magazine cover, to teach the students awareness of shooting pictures for a specific format and subject, and then laying out the cover with their photos in Photoshop.

Wednesday we met up with Guaruma’s assistant director, Chris Poliquin and the school’s English teacher, Erin Coutts. That day we worked with the students in Las Mangas, and the theme of their assignment was “form and color in nature”. We took a walk along the nature trails that Guaruma maintains up the road and across the river just outside town.

The kids here are very much into macro photography, and their sensitivity and awareness of their environment is great to see. A few leaves on the jungle floor become a carefully composed still life, often displaying the subtle interplay of muted greens and browns, other times exploding in the vibrant colors of jungle flowers.

And insects – Oui! They have a critical eye for the smallest creature resting on a leaf or poised on the end of a branch, and work their subjects like a fashion photographer working with their model. Incredible shots of what others might think of as mundane and perhaps something to be dismissed and avoided.

After shooting their photos, we returned to the school where they loaded them onto the computers and learned how to combine the images in Photoshop into a template Eric created as the cover layout.

Then they played with changing type colors and fonts, moving type around the page, and learned how working with layers simplifies so many things. The students were excited to discover what they could do in the program and quickly realized how these techniques could be used with other projects.

Thursday we went up the road to El Pital and worked with the students up there. Neither of these “towns” are even wide spots in the road, but El Pital is a bit more “rustic”. There’s no nature trail there and the focus of their shoot was portraiture of the townspeople.

After some pointers on the do’s – and don’ts – of taking people pictures along with an explanation of how to shoot for a specific format, we unleashed this gaggle of paparazzi on the town.

While a few held back and preferred the comfort of using each other as subjects, most were quick to engage people they met (of course in this town, everyone knows each other) and ask to take their picture. Most were willing subjects and enjoyed working with the kids.

After corralling everyone and herding them back to the classroom, the kids went through the same process of putting their photos into the “cover” template. This group was a bit less computer-savvy than the Las Mangas kids, but nonetheless picked up the concepts and techniques pretty quickly.

This project gives the students an opportunity to learn practice skills that they’ll be able to apply to all of their photography as they move forward in developing their skills.

All of the members of the Jakaramba studio will be participating in the workshop. Up to now their clients have been primarily local and regional non-profit organizations, and they’ve worked on smaller projects. We hope they’ll come away from the workshop with a clear direction for the studio and a solid marketing plan, ready to take their business to the next level.

The client for this workshop will be FotoKids itself, and the project a self-published book to be used for promotion and fund-raising. Plans for the he book are to include an overview of the Fotokids project, feature photographs by FotoKids students, and to touch on the beauty and challenges of Guatemala.

Additional customizable chapters will include bios on individual students, coverage of the Design4Kids project and a look at Jakaramba.

Instructors for this workshop will be Design4Kids director Jeff Speigner, teaching graphic design, Cathy Shea teaching marketing, and Eric Lollkema and myself teaching photography. I’ll also be working with Cathy to interject the small business, target marketing approach with her big business marketing skills and experience.

Eric and I will be arriving a week early and making a side trip to Honduras, where we’ll be teaching photo classes for several days at Guaruma, the Honduras branch of Fotokids.

An interesting side note I’ve recently learned is that while it is currently the rainy season in Guatemala, with moderate temperatures and daily storms, Honduras, right next door but on the Caribbean coast, is in their dry season, with hot sunny days and temps near 100! Quite a climate variance in a area the size of the Carolinas!

Check in regularly – I’ll be providing periodic updates during the trip – internet connections permitting.

Last Saturday started it off with the Kids & Parents Photo Class. The introductory class was geared toward the kids – 11 to 15 year olds – and the parents came along to share the experience and learn alongside each other. Of course, with today’s tech-savvy kids, it’s likely that they were explaining it again to the parents that evening!

We went over the basics of using their cameras – point & shoots – and a little on light and composition. Next we all went outside and practiced what they learned. Then we came back in the classroom and looked at some photo editing techniques, using software like Google’s Picasa.

The parents told me that the kids went home and took photos all afternoon!

That was followed up during the week with the first of two Home Photography Clinics, this one held in Potomac, Maryland, aimed at professionals in the real estate industry who take their own photos for their listings.

While I still make my living as an architectural photographer, it’s obvious that every photo of every home on the market doesn’t justify a budget of hiring a professional like myself. Many clients over the years have asked about how to take better photos themselves, so I’ve put together a two-day workshop to teach some tips and techniques for improving their photos, without all the expensive and complex equipment that I use.

We started with camera basics – many people at this level are using their cameras on the totally automatic settings, and just taking the camera off “the green” and learning how to control it yourself goes a long way towards improving your results.

We talked a bit about equipment – at least an entry-level SLR is really best – plus adding a wide angle lens and a hot shoe flash to allow bouncing and diffusing light.

And of course using a tripod! I’m a big proponent of using a tripod for just about any photo situation you can. It makes it much easier to get sharp pictures in any condition, and frees you up from worrying about too-slow shutter speeds and too-high and noisy ISO’s.

Then we talked about the qualities and colors of light, and how they all play a key role in the success of a photo. Light should always be the first consideration, not an afterthought.

We followed that up with a look at some basics of composition and design elements, like the Rule of Thirds and using lines – especially the power of diagonal lines – to move the eye through the picture and capture the viewer’s attention.

The first day finished up with some considerations and techniques especially useful for architectural-type shooting. We talked about perspective distortion and parallel lines. And about how to tame the typical ultra-high contrast lighting situations found when photographing interiors.

The second day began with the participants practicing the techniques learned on day one. I hold the workshops in a house to give the students an opportunity to try these techniques right away and ask questions.

Finally we went over some very useful post processing methods that make life in the digital age so much easier.

Shooting in RAW is the first thing to consider to make the process of adjusting images on the computer easier and more efficient. This is another reason for choosing an SLR – even most of the entry level models have RAW capture, while only some advanced digital and few point & shoots allow this.

White balancing an interior space illuminated by mixed light sources can be a time-consuming and complicated task with film and even when shooting JPEGS in camera. With Raw processing it becomes a one-click process, with maybe a little slider adjustment to fine tune things. True, some RAW processing software like Adobe Camera Raw allows white balance adjustments on JPEGS, but this feature is often not found on the more economical entry-level programs.

While critical perspective control is still best done with specialty PC lenses (or a view camera), the ability to quickly adjust for keystoning in programs like Photoshop will instantly take photos of both exteriors and interiors up to a level far above the average real estate listing snapshots.

And the ability to bracket exposures and combine them in post-processing is a tremendously useful means of overcoming too-contrasty lighting conditions. With a bit of practice it soon becomes a quick and simple method of taming extreme highlights and shadows, without the greater learning curve and specialty software required for true HDR images.

Everyone who participated was truly excited to start using their new-found skills, and this week we’ll repeat the workshop with another group in Northern Virginia. Those students are already calling with eager questions and requests!

We had them shoot a bracket from -2 to +2 and then showed them how to import their images into Lightroom and make adjustments to their photos, recovering much of their under- and over-exposed frames.

It’s exciting to see the lights come on when the concepts sink in and they “get it”. Ana, one of the girls from “the city” (as Guatemala City is know down here) observed that the shot she liked best wasn’t the “correct” metered exposure – recognizing that having the skills to control the exposure allows you to interpret your image the way you visualize the final result.

Next we repeated the two classes with the more experienced members of the group. While most of them claimed to understand the use of aperture and shutter, it was clear that they all had only a little experience in applying the concepts of manual exposure control in their photos. Once they realized what they really can do by making the camera do what they want, they got totally into the process as well.

Tomorrow is an “excursion day” – no structured classes, but rather a creative play day, with activities that allow the kids to apply and practice the concepts and techniques they’re learning this week. Can’t wait to see what they come up with!

You can certainly create interesting images composing solely with the natural light after the sun goes down. The warmth of sunset cools to a deep blue as the light fades below the horizon, forming a stunning backdrop for silhouettes. The colors in the sky itself, especially dotted with glowing clouds reflecting the sun’s last rays, make amazing compositions. Adding water or any reflective surface to mirror the light show going on in the sky creates yet another level of intrigue.

Still, it’s the playground of mixing man-made lighting with the waning natural light that will keep me fascinated for – well, I’d say hours, but it only lasts for 20 or 30 minutes! Unless you’re in the far north (or south, though I’ve not had an opportunity to shoot at twilight in Terra del Fuego – yet!) where the summer twilight seemingly does last for hours.

Exciting things happen when you mix the warm wash of tungsten light, the multi-colored palette of neon, and even the green glow of fluorescents and mercury vapor lights, against a backdrop of blue twilight.

While there have always been combinations of filters to adjust the tone and color balance to favor one source or the other, the advent of digital photography and instantly-adjustable white balance has made picking the right color balance incredibly easy. The classic FLB fluorescent filter, used to add that magenta glow that is never quite there in reality, can be mimicked by selecting the fluorescent white balance.

You can try every combination of white balance settings right there one after the other, and pick the one you like. Not to mention shooting in RAW and making minute adjustments in post processing.

Did I say digital photography makes it easier? Now the challenge is deciding which look is the “right” one for your eye. At this time of day there really are no rules. It’s “photographer’s choice”.

So grab your tripod, go out this evening and play!

We go at about the same time each year (around July 4^th), stay at the same house we’ve stayed at each year, and after that much time it all has the look and feel of familiarity that we all find in our own every day surroundings.

(c) 2009 Stu Estler

Now don’t get me wrong – it’s a beautiful location, it’s great to spend time together with the family, and there’s plenty to do at and around the lake. It’s hardly a boring vacation.

But after this long, I found myself working much harder to find new and different photo ops. Being a bit laid slowed down by an injury this year kept me from being as active and from ranging as far afield as I usually do, and that certainly played a part.

One of the first reactions in a place like this is to zone in on the beauty of the place and the ever-changing scene unfolding as weather moves up, down and across the lake.

But after ten years, I found myself thinking, “OK, so I don’t have a photo of the lake with THAT particular cloud formation, but I’ve got eleven dozen with cloud formations that look an awfully lot like that one.”

Of course, there will always be the shots of family and our activities, which are a never-ending source of subject matter. When we look back, it’s those pictures that keep the memories of those wonderful times alive.

We may always go up to the airport for the Fourth of July Pancake Breakfast, but this is probably the only time that I’ll see my niece’s son – would that be my grand-nephew? I’m still confused about all that stuff – probably the only time I’ll catch him surveying his handiwork on his pancake breakfast like this.

(c) 2009 Stu Estler

In fact there was barely time to lift the camera and press the shutter before the moment was gone. No time to carefully compose, and avoid the bright orange shirt behind him. A bit of localized saturation and tone reduction helped reduce that a little – believe me, that shirt must be neon international orange!

When the exciting becomes the ordinary, it’s helpful to go back to the basics, and take a look at things through different eyes.

Are you used to framing grand, sweeping panoramas? Switch to a long lens and take a much closer look at things. Concentrate on design, on color, on form instead of on what the subject is.

Select a particular focal length lens – even if it’s a particular setting on a zoom lens – and shoot everything, near and far, with that lens.

Get closer to your subject, for more intimate shots of people than the comfortable distance you may be used to shooting at.

(c) 2009 Stu Estler

In the end, it was on the last morning there, sitting by the water having coffee, that the patterns of light through the water, painting the rocks below, gave me some of my most successful photos.

There’s always something new to see no mater how familiar a subject is. It just takes looking at it from a different point of view.

Vulcan San Pedro Accross Lago de Atitlan (c) 2009 Stu Estler

High ISO’s and wide open apertures were the order of the day much of the time here in Santiago de Atitlan.

Our Workshop Leader Jeff Speigner (c) 2009 Stu Estler

Lots of clouds and light rain making way for the deluge of water as the skies opened up once or twice a day, tempered by a few breaks in the clouds here and there. After all, it is the rainy season.

(c) 2009 Stu Estler

The ebb and flow of weather shrouded volcano San Pedro across the lake in an ever-changing veil of mist and clouds.

(c) 2009 Stu Estler

Of course, the last two days were clear and bright in the morning, as if word of our imminent departure had spread, and the beauty of Guatemala was enticing us to return soon.

View of San Pedro From My Room (c) 2009 Stu Estler

As the morning passes, the warming air gives birth to rings of clouds halfway up the slope. By noon a tremendous cap of billowing cumulous clouds gives the mountain the appearance of a new eruption – even though it’s been dormant for 40,000 years.

The great white and grey mushroom cap foretells the afternoon’s weather – torrential thunderstorms.

The weather taught new photographers and reacquainted we veteran instructors with the beauty and peacefulness of the soft light that embraces every subject when photographing in the rain.

(c) 2009 Stu Estler

Colors that become washed out in bright sunlight are vibrant and saturated. The brilliant flowers growing everywhere burst from the lush blanket of green that defines the landscape. Everything glistens in the wetness crafting reflections not to be found when photographing on a clear, dry day.

I was prepared for the wetness there – I knew it was the rainy season. I did my homework and so anticipated the beauty of the environment and culture.

(c) 2009 Stu Estler

What has completely blown me away has been the incredible talent of these kids! I felt humbled being there teaching them photography.

(c) 2009 Stu Estler

Although they vary in experience and skill levels, their creativity, energy and ability is amazing.

(c) 2009 Stu Estler

To see what we’ve been up to take a look at www.design4kids.org

(c) 2009 Stu Estler

The next workshop is already scheduled for early December. New volunteers with specialties in photography, design and the arts are eagerly welcome! Check the Design4Kids website and keep looking right here for more info.

I’m told December is sunny and dry!

Started by FotoKids founder Nancy McGirr, this is the second Design4Kids workshop and the third workshop with the young people in Santiago. They continue to learn and develop their photography and graphic design talents with the purpose of operating their own design studio in the Atitlan area.

As in the past, the group will receive a real assignment from an actual client, and they will determine the client’s needs, design the concept and create the project. The team of volunteers is made up of commercial artists, graphic designers and photographers who will guide them along in the process.

The kids will be polishing their skills in design, photography and Photoshop, and along the way, they’ll develop and expand their creative talents, and learn possibility thinking that will teach them new ways of looking at themselves, the world and their own potential.

There’s more about the project and the team at http://design4kids.org and a complete overview of the Fotokids organization at www.fotokids.org

(c) 2009 Whitney Klare

I’ve mentioned my friend Whitney, Rudy’s granddaughter, and her passion for photography. She’s sent me a few samples of her work, and with her permission, I’d like to share them with you. She’s already an accomplished photographer, with a great eye for composition and design. From her work, I’m beginning to see that she has a strong interest in abstracts, in using the many tools of digital photography to create a vision of an alternate reality.

This got me thinking about how even when our intent is to create an image that doesn’t exist in our physical world, all of the skills and creative processes of photography still apply.

Being “old school”, and learning all of this well before digital came on the scene, I’ve been well trained in “getting it right in the camera”. Even with film and print-making, there are plenty of options for manipulating the image. But starting out and working with a pre-visualized result in mind is a true mark of your skills.

It’s valuable and important to develop your ability to do it “the right way”, both in shooting and in image processing and making adjustments, not to satisfy some “rule”, but because it gives you so much more control over getting the results you want.

Even with an abstract, and much more so as your images come closer to a vision of “reality”, being able to pre-visualize the shot you want, and understanding and working with the elements of light, composition and design to get those results at each step, makes your work that much more powerful.

(c) 2009 Whitney Klare

A true testament to your skills is to be able to visualize an image that isn’t there in front of you, shoot it and adjust it so that the final result makes people believe that it is the reality that was there. That’s when they say “Wow, how did you get such an amazing shot – I’ve never seen it look like that!” (Whatever “it” is).

Those of us from the “old school”

realize that it was Ansel Adam’s not-so-secret print-making work, together with an exact system of exposing and processing his film that created the magnificent images that he pre-visualized.

So keep shooting, keep experimenting, and keep learning and developing your skills.  

For some time now I have had a goal to work with young people to help them realize and develop their potential, using photography as the tool to stimulate and awaken their creative abilities. I have no experience in working in or with this type of organization, and have struggled with the logistics of creating one on my own.

A close friend and colleague of mine, who knows that I am developing an online course to teach basic and advanced photography (www.thephotomentor.com), saw a post on a forum he follows that he thought might interest me, and forwarded it.

The post was a request from a fellow creative – a photographer by avocation and a graphic designer by profession – looking for a few more volunteers to help teach a workshop with an organization called Fotokids (www.fotokids.org). The group works in Guatemala teaching young people to develop their personal abilities and professional skills in photography and graphic design. They are doing the very thing I want to do!

As you can imagine, when you see an opportunity for something you so strongly desire handed to you, you waste no time, and immediately take advantage of it.

The week-long workshop in June will have the kids begin with a real project from a real client, and take it from concept through to delivery. I’ll be teaching photography and Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop techniques, which is the software the kids currently use. Here’s a link to their blog, which tells about the workshop: http://design4kids-santiago.blogspot.com/

There is absolutely no doubt that his is a fantastic opportunity to share my knowledge and give to these kids, and I’m certain that I will learn and receive even more from them and sharing this experience with them.

I believe that there are two lessons in this: that when you truly believe and focus on the things you want, you attract them to you – often in ways you never expected – and that the way to make a dramatic change in your life – and to positively affect the lives of others – is to take action when you are presented with an opportunity.

Right now the only things for certain are the dates – June 17-25, 2009 – and the location – Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala. Stay tuned.