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National Geographic photographer shares tips on how to photograph the solar eclipse

By in Photography

National Geographic photographer shares tips on how to photograph the solar eclipse

BEDFORD – The Moon’s shadow will soon sweep across the United States on April 8 for the highly anticipated total solar eclipse.

Keith Ladzinski

Canon “Explorer of Light” Keith Ladzinski, a National Geographic Photographer and Emmy-nominated director shared these tips and tricks for capturing this incredible moment.

Keith’s tips for capturing a perfect shot of the eclipse:

Choosing a Camera: While just about any camera can work, consider Canon’s EOS R series for a solar eclipse. Full-frame cameras like the EOS R5 or R8 offer high quality, while APS-C cameras like the EOS R50 or R100 provide a larger sun disk due to their smaller sensor size.

Choosing a Lens: Choose a lens based on your desired sun or moon size relative to your camera’s sensor. Consider lenses like the RF15-30mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM Lens for wide-angle shots during a solar eclipse.

Choosing a Solar Filter: Select a solar filter with CE or ISO certification for safe viewing and photography. Make sure it covers the front of your lens and rear filter trays for super telephotos. Avoid using ND filters for direct viewing, as they may not block harmful light. Improper filters can damage your camera.

Choosing a Tripod and Head: Use a sturdy tripod to prevent fatigue during the lengthy eclipse. Opt for one with four-section legs for portability and ensure it reaches eye level without fully extending. Choose a suitable head, such as an equatorial, gimbal, or ball and socket, for aiming your camera upward during the event.

What to do when the eclipse happens: Use a solar filter for partial phases, remove it 15 seconds before totality for the diamond ring effect, and five seconds before for Baily’s beads. During totality, photograph the corona. Reapply the filter after totality for remaining partial phases. Be cautious of direct sunlight without the filter.

Camera Solar Exposure: You can achieve better eclipse photos by using manual exposure mode, testing your equipment and solar filter beforehand, and periodically checking your settings on eclipse day for optimal results.

A new book celebrates Gabriel Moses’ compelling photography

By in Photography

A new book celebrates Gabriel Moses’ compelling photography

Take a look inside Regina, the acclaimed photographer’s new monograph bringing together work from his stratospheric career to date

5April 2024

The first time I met Gabriel Moses in person was at an after-party, somewhere in east London, sometime in 2021. Unmistakable in his black goggle beanie yet completely unassuming in a room full of inebriated industry folk. You’d never have known he had, a year earlier, aged 21, procured the title of the youngest photographer to shoot a Dazed cover when he photographed Pa Salieu for the AW 2020 edition. 

It’s been awe-inspiring to watch his ascent in the short years that have followed. To be propelled into the stratosphere of fashion, art, and music while remaining grounded is a feat most would fail. Moses has won the hearts of those many would consider idols: Nick Knight, Matthew Williams, Skepta, and more. But these three, in particular, speak intimately about their admiration for the South London phenomenon in Regina, Moses’ debut monograph, which coincides with an exhibition of the same name that opened at London’s 180 Studios last year.

One year on, Moses remains at full speed. A recent Instagram story featured him and Travis Scott posing together, having just this week released the music video for the rapper’s track “FE!N”, which Moses, who Scott calls his ‘twin’, directed. Scott recently also acquired a larger-than-life-sized print from Moses. The same picture graces the cover of Regina: a heavily pregnant woman, her rounded belly luminous amongst her darkened surroundings, blowing a pink bubblegum bubble and twirling her hair.

This is perhaps the most symbolic in the Regina universe: a figure who is at once girl and woman, child and mother. An amalgamation of the feminine guidance that Moses whole-heartedly attributes his glory: his mum, grandmother, sister, and nieces. Regina is an ode to them, telling Dazed last year: “I’ve always had a huge respect for the women in my life and the role they’ve played in everything about me: the way I speak to people, the respect I have for others.” It’s no surprise that the title Regina, meaning ‘queen’ in Latin, was chosen.

In April 2023, Regina, the exhibition, introduced Moses’ work to a broader public who had perhaps been unbothered by, or unexposed to, the fashion magazines or brand campaigns that had helped make his name. In its three-week run, hordes of people descended from the central London sidewalk into the black-painted subterranean of the Brutalist building of 180 Studios. There, through 50 works, from photography to film, including the debut of IJÓ, a moving portrait of young ballet dancers in Lagos, Nigeria, Moses transported us into the artistic liminal space he evokes. Published by Prestel, the monograph now offers a take-home version of his creative mind. 

Moses’ world-building begins at the intersection of his Nigerian heritage and a south London upbringing. Occasionally, his mono-colour, saturated pictures appear like apparitions, ghostly disruptions caught on film; some like tableaux or scenes from a lost film; others erupt like a fever dream of sumptuous, moody reds, greens, and blues. While this can be put down to pure imagination, it is, in fact, rooted in the real. Moses finds great influence in the studio portraiture of Malick Sidibé and the documentary works of Gordon Parks, but a 17th-century inspired A-COLD-WALL campaign from last year could be at home in the famous Uffizi gallery.

But rather than referencing art or photo history explicitly – which, admittedly, a self-taught Moses has only begun studying – it’s his own memory that he pulls from. Whether rifling through his grandmother’s black and white family pictures, remembering his mother running art workshops at church, or being transported back to his youth, playing PlayStation in his sister’s bedroom, its walls plastered in pages torn from 00s magazines. “I want my work to have a sense of timelessness – in that it could have just as easily been shot in 2023 as it could have been shot in a completely different time period,” he told Dazed. This ability to collapse time and space makes his work so intoxicating.  

Regina, the monograph, contains interviews with the aforementioned cultural idols and texts of admiration from friends, like artist Olaolu Slawn, Corteiz-founder Clint, and Places & Faces frontman Ciesay, campaigns and shoots for Louis Vuitton, Vogue, and Y3, as well as unseen photographs. Moses’ rapid success is a testament to his vision and the confidence to nurture it. Moses has firmly found his feet in a creative landscape where many are tripping over each other – where the social media-fication of photography risks mind-numbing homogeneity. But then, someone like Gabriel Moses comes along to remind us that it’s still possible to exist in a world of one’s own.

Regina by Gabriel Moses is published by Prestel and is available to pre-order now.

Emerging Choreographers Showcase

By in Sculpture

Emerging Choreographers Showcase
Emerging Choreographers Showcase Site specific performances choreographed by Esperanza dancers in response to sculptures, art shown by local artists, a founder’s talk, and the premiere of EDP’s new middle school oriented performance ProjectRIS!

Young wildlife photographer sees ‘kissing blackbird’ picture snapped up by Co-op

By in Photography

Young wildlife photographer sees ‘kissing blackbird’ picture snapped up by Co-op

A young amateur photographer who captured two blackbirds “kissing” on camera is seeing his shot turned into a card and sold in the Co-op supermarket.

Ben Pulletz, now 21, captured six striking images of animals and nature around his home in Somerset. Among them were a rabbit in a meadow, a grasshopper, a great tit perched among rose hips and a sunny field of daisies.

The cards will be launched in 1,300 stores and the Co-op will donate £10,000 to the RSPB.

Ben Pulletz, now 21, captured the striking images of animals and nature around his home in Somerset (Ben Pulletz)

He said: “I am absolutely delighted and, to be honest, it really hasn’t sunk in yet. I can’t believe that I would have had such a positive response from Co-op when I first reached out to them.

“I have been trying to track the perfect wildlife photographs for so many years, but the idea of a national chain taking up my images would have been seen by me and everyone else as ‘one for the birds’.

“I am especially pleased that the daisy photograph has been used – it is my mum’s favourite.”

The cards will be launched in 1,300 stores and the Co-op will donate £10,000 to the RSPB (Ben Pulletz)

A keen wildlife enthusiast, Mr Pulletz started taking pictures of animals in the countryside near Charlton Mackrell in Somerset five years ago, wandering through fields and woodlands to get the perfect image. In 2020, at the age of 17, he set up his own photo-card business, Feathers & Hills.

He said: “It first started when I left school and didn’t know what to do. I always loved the natural world and was always taking photos of the sunrise and sunset on my iPad.

“I picked out things around my local village and then waited for the light to appear. I took an image of rapeseed in the golden glare and after that picture, I was hooked.

The 20-year-old photographer said his daisy photograph is his mum’s favourite (Ben Pulletz)

“I love nature photography as you can always expect the unexpected. Being out in places where I know are wildlife hot spots is always exciting, as it is only a matter of time before something special comes into view. I never stop believing and always stay positive.”

In 2021, Mr Pulletz won the Siena International Award for his photography in the Under 20 Category. His work has also featured in the British Wildlife Photography Awards book.

Booker prizewinner Bernardine Evaristo applauds photographer Ingrid Pollard

By in Photography

Booker prizewinner Bernardine Evaristo applauds photographer Ingrid Pollard

The Booker-prizewinning writer Bernardine Evaristo praised Ingrid Pollard in an Instagram post last month after the seasoned British artist scooped one of the world’s top photography prizes, the Hasselblad Award. The accolade comes with a hefty SKr2m prize pot (around £152,000) and a show at the Hasselblad Center in Gothenburg, Sweden. Pollard has come to the fore in recent years, bagging a Turner Prize nomination in 2022, but crucially she was also a key figure in the British Black Arts movement of the 1980s and an active member of grassroots campaigns for women’s liberation and LGBTQ+ rights. Evaristo highlighted Pollard’s unique journey, saying: “It’s wonderful that she is now being rewarded for pursuing a singular artistic vision rather than bowing to commercial pressures. Folks, you never know what the future has in store for you.” Brava, Ingrid.

Palestinian photographer wins regional World Press Photo competition

By in Photography

Palestinian photographer wins regional World Press Photo competition

The photograph, which has been seen around the world, shows Palestinian woman Inas Abu Maamar, 36, embracing the body of her five-year-old niece Saly, who was killed in an Israeli strike, at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 17, 2023.

Salem says taking the photograph in the Nasser Hospital morgue “was a powerful and a sad moment”.

“I felt the picture sums up the broader sense of what was happening in the Gaza Strip,” he said.

“People were confused, running from one place to another, anxious to know the fate of their loved ones, and this woman caught my eye as she was holding the body of the little girl and refused to let go.”

aljazeera.com

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