How Do They Get Those Images?

How Do They Get Those Images?

by William Lulow

Note: Here’s a little article I published a couple of years ago that highlights the thought process in creating an image.

One of the best compliments a photographer can get is something like, “How did she get that shot?” Because images people take with their cameras held up to their eyes without any evidence of thought, are just too numerous to have any kind of lasting effect on viewers. But when someone asks how a particular shot was obtained, that’s really trying to dig down deep into the process itself!

Images that command attention have to have some of this element present. They have to create a kind of wonderment or awe that forces the viewer to have somewhat of a visceral reaction. Then, they have achieved a level of effectiveness!

So, here’s an image I created not too long ago:

Do you know what it took to make this picture? Do you think it has a “wow” factor? Well, opinions sometimes differ with regard to any kind of art, but here’s the thought process and what went into to making this shot:

Our little town in Westchester (about 40 minutes north of New York City) puts up these snowflakes for the winter season. They look so pretty when they are all lit up, which they only do during the evening and night hours, naturally. I wanted to make a picture of them and I knew it had to be an evening or an early morning shot because I wanted there to be enough light to show some of the surroundings. In the evening, there were always a lot of cars and people around, so I thought that that would be the wrong time. So, it had to be early in the morning. A weekend monster blizzard here finally provided the ideal opportunity. I got up just before sunrise, started the car and loaded the camera and tripod in the back. I knew it had to be a long exposure.  I drove to town and parked in one of the lots. The only people around were guys plowing the parking spaces. Then I took the camera and hiked up a long flight of stairs in the 20-degree weather, set up the tripod and prepared to make my shot. Daylight was almost upon the town. I knew I had to bump up my ISO setting a little so I set it for ISO 520. With the camera secure on the tripod, I wanted to stop down a bit to gain some depth-of-field so I set the aperture at f/5.6. This dictated a shutter speed of around 1/2 a second. I made a series of exposures, adjusting the shutter speed a bit to create a few underexposed frames in order to saturate the color a little, and finally came up with one that I liked. This shot has not been altered at all. This is exactly the way I saw the scene at about 6:30AM. The lights stand out against sky. Another snowflake is separated from the dark trees in the background.  Dawn was breaking just over the hill and created the gradient in the tone of the sky. The faint lines of the snow, the walkway and the fence lead the viewer’s eye toward the snowflake.

Here’s another view from a little further back:

I spoke in one of these blog articles about a photographer who would travel out to some of the national parks in the American West, plant himself in a good location and wait, sometimes for weeks, for some spectacular light to occur before making his images. Many commercial photographers like me don’t always have the luxury of time to invest in coming up with those kinds of shots, but we often have to go to some lengths to achieve memorable images. This is just a short explanation of how I went about making this one. But I first thought about the image BEFORE I went out to shoot it. I actually saw the shot in my mind first. That’s the difference between making a stunning image and just holding the camera up to your eye and snapping the shutter!