Broxtronix

The ability to take good photographs of people has long alluded me. I get lucky occasionally with a particularly candid, close-up portrait, but I’m usually too shy to take many people pictures because I feel like it’s an invasion of privacy or that it makes people nervous. Plus, my slightly quiet demeanor means that I sometimes lack the charismatic, outgoing attitude that helps a photographer to put people at ease in these situations. And counterintuitively, the larger and nicer the camera and the lens, the more nervous the subject will be. My large, noisy camera makes people plenty aware that their photo is being taken…

But, as with all things, practice seems to help. I’ve been slowly overcoming my own hesitations, and perhaps more importantly, I’ve focused on capturing pictures of my closest friends. They have learned to relax and enjoy themselves when I’m taking their picture and this leads to some great results!

Even this had been a slow process until the most recent Raging Madness trip to Zion National Park, where I finally made a huge breakthrough! This album has some of my best photos so far!

There were a few techniques that worked out particularly well on this trip. First, getting close, or shooting from the same viewpoint as a person on the trip (e.g. standing over someone’s shoulder) puts you into the middle of the action and conveys what is was like to be there. Next, when the emphasis of the photograph is the landscape, but you want to include people for scale or context, it seems to help to show them walking or facing away from you. On the other hand, when the main subject of the photo are the people, it’s best to have them face the camera. I also love the effect that you get when you tilt the camera off angle. This yields a more dynamic shot. It can even induce vertigo! Finally, you just can’t beat panoramas for showing you expansive scale and context.

Putting photography aside for a second, I also want to mention how much I loved hiking in Zion! I wasn’t sure what to expect when I arrived — with such stiff local competition from the Grand Canyon, Canyonlands, and Escalante, I wasn’t sure if Zion would be able to distinguish itself. But my fears were unfounded: I was very, very impressed. It’s definitely one of my three favorite National Parks of all time, and it’s particularly exciting that it’s within striking distance of the Bay Area — I can get there in about six hours from door to canyon, so I expect I’ll be visiting there quite a lot during the coming years. In fact, some of us have sekkrit ninja plans to return for a technical canyoneering trip in the near future. Some of the best parts of our backpacking trip were the days where we explored rocky side canyons that were full of hidden treasures. Our short trip up waterfalls canyon ended when we encountered this obstacle, so we would like to return with more gear and a better plan next time so that we can delve deeper into the park.

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