ABOUT GUESTS:

Isaac Wingfield

Isaac Wingfield grew up in the mountains of Western NC. During his undergraduate education at Appalachian State University (Boone, NC), he completed a two-year interdisciplinary program through Appalachian’s Watauga College. This interdisciplinary approach deeply altered his way of thinking about the world, and photography as part of that world. After spending a year in New York City working for the photojournalism agency Magnum Photos he completed his Master of Fine Arts at Rhode Island School of Design (Providence, RI).

He is currently based in Ypsilanti, Michigan, and teaches photography in the Residential College, an interdisciplinary liberal arts program at the University of Michigan. His interests include landscape culture and outdoor recreation, roads and highways, prisons and mass incarceration, and using the photographic process to obscure rather than reveal.

José Burgos

Former juvenile lifer—went to prison at age 16 with a “life without parole” sentence. Came home at age 43, after serving 27 years.

Criminal justice reform advocate; member of ICAN (Incarcerated Children’s Advocacy Network); member of NLC (National “Life Without Parole” Leadership Council) working towards ending life without parole sentencing.

RESOURCES:

Humanize the Numbers

TRANSCRIPTION:

David Fair: This is 89 one WEMU. And, here at the station, we’ve often discussed the communal importance of art to our quality of life. Today, we’re going to look at that through a bit of a different lens. I’m David Fair, and I’d like to welcome you to this week’s edition of Washtenaw United. It is our weekly exploration of equity and opportunity. It’s often difficult for any of us to find our purpose and path forward. Imagine exploring those options while behind bars. How do you access those opportunities–those dreams–while incarcerated? Well, it takes a different mindset and avenue. The Prison Creative Arts Project at the University of Michigan is working with some who are incarcerated and has a program called “Humanize the Numbers.” And we have two guests with us today. The first is with us in studio. Isaac Wingfield is a lecturer in photography at the University of Michigan and with the Humanize the Numbers Project. And thank you for being here, Isaac. I appreciate it.

Isaac Wingfield: Yeah, thanks for having me.

David Fair: And our second guest today joins us by phone, José Burgos, who’s a reentry specialist with the Michigan State Appellate Defender’s Office. José is also a member of the Incarcerated Children’s Advocacy Network and National Life Without Parole Leadership Council. That works towards ending life without parole sentencing. And, José, you came to this line of work the hard way, didn’t you?

José Burgos: Yes, I did. Yes, I did. And thank you for having me.

David Fair: Well, José is a formal juvenile lifer, having been sentenced to life without parole at the age of 16. But he was released after serving 27 years of his sentence. And, José, how did you come to the Humanize the Numbers project?

José Burgos: When I was at the facility, I was at the Thumb Correctional Facility, they had actually put up a posting in the unit–in the housing unit there–about the program. They didn’t have a lot of details of what the program was. But, just that, you know, with the program, there was, you know, through PCAB at the University of Michigan. And so, they asked the participants who signed up. And so, I signed up. And a lot of people signed up, but it was a limited number of people who actually got into the program. [00:02:03][25.5]

David Fair: So, Isaac, if you could describe the broad mission of the project for me.

Isaac Wingfield: Humanize the Numbers is really about allowing the voices of the men in prison to, I guess, allowing them to express themselves, allowing them to share a little bit of their story with the hope that folks outside of prison will begin to see and understand what’s kind of hidden behind prison walls a little bit better.

David Fair: Specifically, there is an external and public facing component to this project and an internal component for those that are incarcerated themselves. How do you give to both sides of that?

Isaac Wingfield: Yeah, well, I think when the workshop’s happening, the focus is really on what’s happening in that space, You know, working with the men who are in prison, giving them a space to kind of exist for a brief moment, a little bit outside the kind of normal confines of how prison day-to-day life operates. That’s, I think, when we’re in, when we’re making pictures, when we’re working together, when we’re having conversations, that’s really our focus is on doing what we can to make that experience and the opportunity to be creative and to do something out of the ordinary, really as meaningful as possible. And then, once that’s done, we start thinking about, you know, where those images can go. And that’s some of the conversations that we have during the workshop is who is it that the men that are there making images, who do they think these images need to be seen by? Who do their stories need to be heard by?

David Fair: And, José, through this project and through your participation, did you learn something about yourself that perhaps you hadn’t recognized before?

José Burgos: I guess more so, like, the creativity of it. So, when we first got into the program, we went to the visiting room and, you know, once they explained that we were using photography, but, you know, you’re so limited to what they can bring in. So, we were, like, “Well, what are we going to use? What kind of products are going to use?,” since we didn’t know the extent of how these photos were going to come out. So, I guess just the creativity, you know, how to, you know, speak or send a message out just based on, you know, seeing photography. Know what I’m saying? And so, we never looked at it from from that standpoint to be able to send a message to photography. You know, for us, it was just, you know, we take pictures, and that was just it. But we didn’t know how powerful images can be into stories that images can tell.

David Fair: Upon reflection, what message do you think you were sending with the pictures you chose to take?

José Burgos: Um, you know, because I was a juvenile lifer, I think one of the things that I wanted to do was I wanted to tap in to the 16-year-old who went through what he went through. Know what I’m saying? And, you know, my message to the world was like, “I’m more than just a number.” I’m just like the name of the program Humanize the Numbers. Like, I wanted the world to see me for who I was as a person, opposed to just that number that I was given based on, you know, a 15-second mistake that I made in my life at an early age. So, that’s basically the message that I was trying to convey.

David Fair: This is Washtenaw United on 89 one WEMU, and we’re talking with José Burgos and Isaac Winfield about the Humanize the Numbers project that comes out of the University of Michigan’s Prison Creative Arts project. And, Isaac, this is also an opportunity to take University of Michigan students into a prison system. What reaction and what impact does that have?

Isaac Wingfield: It’s a really profound impact for those students. The class is small, so there’s only a few students going in each time. But for those students that do go in, you know, some of them have experience in photography and some of them have experience studying the criminal legal system. But it’s pretty unusual to have students who have had that kind of direct experience with it going in and talking face-to-face with people who are living that as their day-to-day experience and have for years, if not decades.

David Fair: And, Isaac, you get to take these photos and these artworks out into the community in a variety of different ways and venues. I know some of the photos and artwork created by those in the project were on display at this summer’s Ann Arbor Art Fair. What was the reaction at the booth from those who stopped to take a look?

Isaac Wingfield: It got a really great, positive reaction. There are folks–a lot of folks–who came through and saw it, and I think there are a number of folks every day that were brought to tears as they’re looking through the images there and reading some of the stories. So, I think it’s really profoundly impactful for folks to be able to see and to start to think about something that they probably have not encountered before.

David Fair: Have you had that personal reaction yourself? Have you been brought to tears or moved deeply by the stories that are told?

Isaac Wingfield: Yeah, definitely. I mean, the class itself is a lot of work. It’s so much easier to teach a course on campus at the university than it is to take it an hour and 10 minutes into a secure facility. But, for me, getting to see and getting to know and hear the stories of the men who are in prison, that’s a huge part of why I continue doing it.

David Fair: Once again, we’re talking about the University of Michigan’s Humanize the Numbers project with Isaac Wingfield and José Burgos. And I do want to get a little more personal with you, José . While you were incarcerated, did you feel seen or did you even feel human in your 27 years locked up?

José Burgos: Not really, because just the way, you know, your day-to-day are, you know, in prison. One of the things, you know, staff there, you know, they’re to do a job. They definitely disconnect themselves from, you know, from having any type of human compassion for those that they’re they’re with. And I wish it wasn’t that way, but it was. Know what I’m saying?

David Fair: What was the crime you were convicted of?

José Burgos: It was a homicide case.

David Fair: So, understanding that we are looking to humanize this entire experience, the family and friends may very well resent that you did not have to serve out your life sentence. Clearly, you’ve made a turn, and you’re contributing to community and valuable ways. But, perhaps, they feel like now your actions reduced their loved one to a number or statistic. How do you come to terms with that and move forward?

José Burgos: I think, really, you know, the person who I become, the work that I’m doing, like, literally, when I went back as a juvenile lifer and got re-sentenced, I told the judge that I wanted something good to come out of this bad situation that we got into. And I’m doing it. I’m doing it. You know, I’ve been home now going on five years, and every single day of my life since I’ve been home, this is what I’ve been doing. I’ve been helping others who are coming from prison to make sure that they have everything they need, so that they don’t go back. S,o that keeps our community safe. I mentor other other juvenile lifers who have already been out here, but, periodically, may need a phone card, you know, to keep them on the right path or just some encouragement. So, I’m living my life. I know that what I did, I’ll never be able to, you know, undo what would have happened. Know what I’m saying? But I am in charge of what happens afterwards. You know what I’m saying? And so, I wanted something good to come out of that situation. And I think I’m doing that on a daily basis.

David Fair: And, Isaac, as you work in this project, do you see art as a viable bridge to helping society change some of its perception of the men and women in our prison system?

Isaac Wingfield: Absolutely. I think that any time we can start to be exposed to other people’s perspectives and see things through someone else’s eyes, that can open our own way of thinking about, you know, what it is that we’re doing when we’re sending people off in to the prison system without thought for the rest of their lives. And it’s easy to do that, as a society, without necessarily thinking about the personal impact on not just the people who are being sent to prison, but also their families, their communities that are being torn apart in the process.

David Fair: Well, I think we have a lot to think about after our conversation today. I’d like to thank both of you for coming and sharing your stories.

Isaac Wingfield: Thanks so much.

José Burgos: Thank you. Thank you very much.

David Fair: That is José Burgos and Isaac Wingfield. José is a reentry specialist with the Michigan State Appellate Defender’s Office, and Isaac is a photography lecturer at the University of Michigan working on the Humanize the Numbers project. For more information on the project and to see some of the artwork, visit our website at WEMU dot org. Washtenaw United is produced in partnership with the United Way of Washtenaw County and presented every Monday. I’m David Fair, and this is your community NPR station 89 one WEMU.

UWWC STATEMENT

Our Criminal Justice System is known to be made up of several inequities and injustices. Criminal legal reform addresses structural issues in criminal legal systems such as racial profiling, police brutality, overcriminalization, mass incarceration, and recidivism.

These structural issues result in Black and brown people, people with low incomes, and people with mental illness being incarcerated at higher rates as compared to the general population.

Why criminal legal reform? The United States incarcerates its citizens more than any other country (source). Today, nearly 10 million Americans—including millions of children—have an immediate family member in jail or prison. More than 4.5 million Americans can’t vote because of a past conviction.

And each year, we lose $87 billion in GDP due to mass incarceration. In Washtenaw County, those numbers are smaller, but the impact on opportunity and life potential is real. According to recently available data, over 1,000 people are incarcerated in our local prison; these individuals are predominantly Black and brown.

Watch this panel discussion from the Dispute Resolution Center and Friends of Restorative Justice in Washtenaw County about the intersectionality of mental disorders, incarceration, and restorative justice featuring Derrick Jackson of the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office and State Rep. Felicia Brabec.

WEMU has partnered with the United Way of Washtenaw County to explore the people, organizations, and institutions creating opportunity and equity in our area. And, as part of this ongoing series, you’ll also hear from the people benefiting and growing from the investments being made in the areas of our community where there are gaps in available services. It is a community voice. It is ‘Washtenaw United.’

Non-commercial, fact based reporting is made possible by your financial support.  Make your donation to WEMU today to keep your community NPR station thriving.

Like 89.1 WEMU on Facebook and follow us on Twitter

Contact WEMU News at 734.487.3363 or email us at studio@wemu.org

2023 European Photography Awards Full Results Announced

2023 European Professional Photographer of the Year – Ghost of Asano by Jatenipat Ketpradit

2023 European Amateur Photographer of the Year – Resilient mothers by João Coelho

The International Awards Associate (IAA), in partnership with the European Photography Awards, proudly announces the results of the 2023 competition.

BERLIN, BE, GERMANY , August 21, 2023/EINPresswire.com/ — The International Awards Associate (IAA), in partnership with the European Photography Awards, proudly announces the results of the 2023 competition. This prestigious contest, open to photographers worldwide, honours the artists who capture the vibrant diversity and cultural heritage seen across the globe. This year, the competition drew remarkable attention, receiving a striking 3,300 submissions from 50 nations, including Germany, Italy, the United States, Switzerland, Australia, France, Portugal, Japan, Spain, and beyond, underscoring its global appeal and impact.

2023 European Photographers of the Year
After meticulous review of an impressive array of submissions, the European Photography Awards is delighted to unveil its distinguished Photographers of the Year for 2023. Jatenipat Ketpradit of Thailand earns the title of Professional Photographer of the Year with his captivating piece, “Ghost of Asaro,” and will receive a $3,000 cash prize. João Coelho of Portugal is celebrated as the Amateur/Student Photographer of the Year for their evocative work, “Resilient Mothers,” earning a $2,000 cash prize.

1. Professional Photographer of the Year – Ghost of Asaro by Jatenipat Ketpradit
2. Amateur/Student Photographer of the Year – Resilient mothers by João Coelho

2023 Category Winners for the Year
Beyond the coveted Photographer of the Year distinction, the European Photography Awards celebrates a diverse range of talents spanning multiple categories. With a commitment to highlighting excellence in every niche, the award is set on honouring standout photographers in both professional and amateur/student categories. Each of these maestros has left an indelible mark and will be duly recognised with a cash prize of $100 to further fuel their passion and craft.

Category Winners of the Year (Professional)
1. Italy Photography – 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas by Robin Yong
2. Germany Photography – A Journey to the Self by Marlena Wels
3. France Photography – Boxing club n°1 by Christophe Demigné
4. Architecture Photography –Tadawul #2 by Gerry O’Leary
5. Editorial Photography – Ukraine:The Terror of War by Daniel Ceng
6. Fine Art Photography – Wonderful Moment by Shihao Li
7. Nature Photography – Great White by Brice Weaver
8. People Photography – Survive in Katanga by John T. Pedersen
9. Black & White Photography – Water & Light by Liza Heinrichs
10. Special Photography – The Last Feed. by Kazutoshi Kawakami

Category Winners of the Year (Amateur/Student)
1. Italy Photography – Mountains of Fire by Andrea Sagui
2. Germany Photography – Elina-2 by Bodo Gebhardt
3. Commercial Photography – You And ALL The Seasons by Andy Whale
4. Architecture Photography – Winged by Anna Wacker
5. Editorial Photography – The end of the line by João Coelho
6. Nature Photography – Love is by Alexander Seleznyov
7. People Photography – Jigong by MingLun Tsai
8. Black & White Photography – Fire in my heart by Mariko Okubp
9. Special Photography – The Kranzbach by Mark Tomalla

“This season’s submissions have brilliantly showcased the pinnacle of global photographic artistry, reflecting a symphony of vision and technique,” declared Thomas Brandt, the spokesperson for IAA. “Evaluating and commending such exceptional works has been a rewarding challenge for our esteemed panel of jurors.”

Grand Jury Panel
The European Photography Awards maintains a gold standard when it comes to the selection of its jurors, upholding the contest’s high standard of integrity and prestige. Notable members include Donell Gumiran (United Arab Emirates), Benny Lau (Hong Kong S.A.R., China), Gigi Chung (United States), Dawid Galinski (Iceland), Alessandra Minotti (Italy), and Pinu Rahman (Bangladesh), to name a few, each contributing unique expertise and passion to the evaluation process.

“Presenting these awards is more than a recognition; it is a celebration of contemporary photographic excellence,” declared Thomas Brandt. “As the European Photography Awards builds its legacy, we envision a future where our honourees continually redefine and elevate the world of visual artistry.”

Kindly visit the European Photography Awards’ official website for the complete list of award winners: https://europeanphotoawards.com/.

In addition to the recent conclusion of the European Photography Awards, its sister award – the New York Photography Awards, is now actively seeking submissions. This prestigious event warmly welcomes international photographic talents to showcase exceptional masterpieces, providing ample opportunity for global photographers to shine.

About European Photography Awards
The European Photography Awards is an international photography competition, that recognises exquisite and artistic content, honouring vast arrays of genres in the photographic medium, extending the reaches of photographical talents all across the globe.

About International Awards Associate (IAA)
Established in 2015, the International Awards Associate (IAA) is a global organization that is dedicated to recognizing professional excellence and outstanding achievements in various industries. As the organizer of a wide range of prestigious award programs such as the MUSE Creative Awards, MUSE Design Awards, Vega Digital Awards, NYX Awards, NYX Game Awards, TITAN Business Awards, TITAN Property Awards, London Design Awards, NY Product Design Awards, and many more, IAA aims to honour, promote and encourage professional excellence, from industry to industry, internationally and domestically, through award platforms that are industry appropriate.

Tyler K.
International Awards Associate Inc.
tyler@iaaawards.org
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Lillianne Sharp discovered her passion for photography in 2018 in Fort Myers, Florida, in and started her own business shortly after. Through Lillianne Sharp Photography, she began taking photos of her kids, soon venturing to host sessions for family and friends. 

Sharp moved to Owensboro in 2021, working towards her passion for capturing the beauties of motherhood and family. She offers year-round sessions in homes or outdoors at a local park and offers artwork and prints in conjunction with the sessions.

“I love all things motherhood and have specialized in maternity and newborn photography,” Sharp said. “I love capturing the beauty and love that pregnancies and babies bring to a family. While I specialize in maternity and newborn, I love to capture families year after year and see those little ones grow.”

Sharp noted that she’s especially passionate about photographing breastfeeding, and she puts on an annual project where she gathers mothers and children to celebrate World Breastfeeding Week

“Even after moving to Owensboro in 2021, I continue to host yearly group breastfeeding sessions in July. Those have almost become my signature event,” she said.

Sharp takes great pride in getting to know each family and understanding the individual dynamics that make them unique. 

“I strive to capture the love and bond each family shares and focus on those little moments that seem to pass all too quickly,” Sharp said. “As a mom of four boys, I know all too well how quickly they grow and how their love of dinosaurs gets forgotten in the world of Minecraft.”

She also cherishes being a part of the Owensboro business community and appreciates the kindness and support the community extends. 

“Being part of the Owensboro community means supporting one another, and Owensboro has been the best community we could have moved to,” she said. “Everyone here supports and cares for their neighbor, and that’s what it’s all about.”

To learn more about Lillianne Sharp Photography, visit lilliannesharpphotography.com, or search the business name on Facebook and Instagram. 

The Chamber Member of the Week program is a Greater Owensboro Chamber of Commerce membership benefit. Founded in 1913, the Greater Owensboro Chamber of Commerce has worked to provide valuable benefits and services to member businesses and individuals for over a century.

Today, with a membership base of nearly 1,000, the Chamber is a guiding force in community and business development initiatives, serving as the center of business advocacy for the Greater Owensboro region. 

To learn more about becoming the Chamber Member of the Week or inquire about Chamber membership, contact Shelly Nichols, Chamber Vice President, at 270-926-1860 or [email protected].

This is part two of a two part series on editing wildlife images. You can see part one, from last week, here. 

White balance

For most of our wildlife photography we set our cameras to Auto White Balance. We might occasionally go off-piste with something funky like a tungsten setting to create a blue hour effect, but generally AWB gives us a good starting point. 

Shooting in RAW means we can then adjust the white balance in Lightroom without damaging the image quality.

AWB often needs a little tweaking with the Temp slider. Animals shot in shadow, for example, might benefit from some gentle warming to remove excessive blueness.  As always restraint is the key to a natural looking image here. You’re never going to generate a convincing golden hour effect just by cranking up the white balance to eleven.

So too with Tint, which we use occasionally, for example if an image looks a little too magenta, although never more than +/- 10 and usually less. We rarely use the White Balance Selector (eyedropper) to neutralise our tones, it works very well with many photographic genres, but with nature images it can remove precisely the warmth of light we’re trying to capture. 

Exposure

We tend to do our exposure adjustments in the Basic tab, rarely using the Tone Curve tab.  Generally, we’d hope to have made a reasonable exposure in-camera, so the Exposure slider will need only a little adjustment, if any – certainly no more than 0.25 stops either way.

The exceptions are where we’re looking for a high or low- key effect when a more radical exposure adjustment is called for.

We’d hope to get this about right in-camera, but with challenging subjects like, for example, white swans on a misty lake, judging the right amount of over-exposure to achieve the required effect is tricky in the field when you don’t always have time to bracket your shots.

If we’re subtle with the Exposure slider, we’re much more assertive with the highlights, shadows, whites and blacks.  Whites and highlights work in tandem, we’ll often increase whites significantly to punch up the Raw file, but decrease the highlights to avoid them burning out. 

Many animals and birds have bright tones that can easily blow out – white feathers and fur, shiny horns or muzzles. So while we might add +50 or more to the whites, we’ll sometimes drop the highlights by as much as -100. 

Shadows and blacks similarly operate in tandem, so opening up the shadows by moving the slider to the right often demands a slight decrease in the black, to maintain sufficient contrast. 

Our shadows and blacks adjustments tend to be more restrained than our whites and highlights, not least because brightening the dark tones too much can add substantial noise.  We’d rarely adjust either by more than +/- 15.

All the while we’re adjusting tones we keep an eye on the clipping warning triangles in the top corners of the histogram.  For publishing purposes it’s inadvisable for the tonal range to extend right to the limits in most cases, so if we see a clipping warning we’ll pull the sliders back in a little.

We rarely use the Contrast slider – it’s a bit too rough and ready. We much prefer to target our adjustments .

Presence

The presence sliders are a big temptation, offering enticing image ‘enhancements’ but flirting with the danger of excess.  Who wouldn’t want more clarity in their subject, more texture in fur and feathers? But this is where it’s very easy to make the real world appear unreal.  

We’ll often add a little Clarity, perhaps +10, but rarely more than +15.  And if we’re adding clarity, we’ll often use masking to apply it just to the animal, preferring to leave the background softer. 

The Texture slider isn’t something we generally tend to adjust, to our taste it rarely enhances natural subjects. Dehaze we also rarely use, though applied locally through masking it can sometimes help reduce the softening effect of an out of focus foreground object like a leaf across the subject.

RAW files often need the colour enhancing a little, but be wary with natural subjects not to overdo it. Vibrance is another of those sliders that’s often abused, making green grass too emerald, water too blue.

We’ll often apply a little positive Vibrance, but generally no more than +10.  And we’re tentative with the Saturation slider, which, like the Contrast slider, can be a bit too broad brush for most things.

Selective adjustments to make your subject pop

Lightroom has powerful masking tools which allow for selective adjustments within the image and used carefully can really make your subject sing.

In masks, the Brush tool is probably the most useful, allowing us to ‘dodge and burn’ our image by applying tonal adjustments to specific areas. It can also be good for applying a little extra sharpening to key areas such as eyes, though as we’ll discuss later, we prefer sharpening outside of Lightroom.  

Generally, we use the brush with a lot of feathering, only using a hard-edged brush for small, well-defined details like eyes.  As well as enhancing the overall balance of tones in different parts of the image, the brush tool is also useful for dulling down distracting highlights, such as bright rocks, branches or glimmers of sky among foliage. 

The Select Subject function works very well but rather than use it to enhance the subject, we’ll often invert the selection (click on the three dots for this option) and adjust the background instead. 

Subtle changes to subdue the background, such as reducing Clarity a little, making it a little darker or lighter and dampening distracting highlights, all can help make the subject animal ‘pop’.

We’ll further refine this technique occasionally by not only inverting the subject selection to select the background, but also intersecting this selection with a linear gradient, dropped down from the top of the image.

By then applying a Clarity reduction, it’s possible to emulate focus drop-off, reducing the clarity most at distance, but progressively less as you get nearer the subject’s plane of focus. 

This can be a powerful way of making the animal stand-out in situations where you perhaps needed quite a lot of depth of field to make your subject sharp throughout, but in doing so rendered the background intrusively in-focus.

The degree to which you apply these selective adjustments to enhance your image will depend on your end use – you may need to be less bold with an image destined for competition, for example.

But whatever the end use, try to exercise restraint and as a guide ask yourself whether someone would be surprised if they saw the RAW file of your processed image.

Look out for the final part next week. 

A photograph taken in 1880 by Bedford Lemere, a renowned architectural photography firm of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, shows a dimly lit courtyard, narrow and surrounded on three sides by worn brick buildings. Uneven paving stones lead to a passageway, through which, barely visible, a man and a child watch the photographer from a distance, while a spectral presence in the foreground reveals itself to be another person, their form blurred, suggesting they moved during the long exposure time a camera of the era required. The photograph pictures Jerusalem Court in Clerkenwell, London. Most likely, it was commissioned by the Clerkenwell vestry to earmark Jerusalem Court as an area ‘unfit for human habitation’ – a phrase used by housing inspectors to describe dwellings deemed unhealthy for residents to live in. In the annual report for 1899, a special committee, commissioned by the Clerkenwell vestry to examine the condition of courts and blind alleys in the area, states that, according to ‘medical men’, the block of dwellings on the north side of Jerusalem court is ‘very unhealthy, without through ventilation, and such as should never have been built’.

The photograph of Jerusalem Court was, in fact, deliberately taken in such a way as to reinforce the fatal verdict of the ‘medical men’. The emphasis on the enclosed sense of space – enhanced by the camera angle – and the lack of light, dilapidated buildings and stained paving mobilise visual tropes of disease and filth that recur in slum photography to signal urban decay. When presented to the Clerkenwell Sanitary Committee, the photograph read as evidence that the courtyard was a slum area and, as such, an appropriate candidate for clearance and demolition.

Slums have long invited the camera’s gaze. This photograph of Jerusalem Court is characteristic of the many photographs of slum housing taken across Britain since the late 1860s. Most of these are unremarkable in aesthetic terms, but the sheer volume of ‘slum photographs’ held in the archives of British cities such as London, Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham reveals the extent to which slum housing – and, by extension, the management of the working-class populations who lived in it – was a subject of major national concern. From Thomas Annan’s 19th-century photographs of rundown Glasgow tenements, to images of East End slum clearances taken in the 1950s, such images have informed our ideas about how the urban environment might be critically linked to the nation’s social, moral and physical health.

Slums captured the American imagination, too. In the 1880s, Jacob Riis, once a destitute Danish immigrant himself, photographed the abject conditions endured by New Yorkers in the overcrowded tenements of Lower East Side Manhattan. Riis’s photographs revealed for the first time to a suitably scandalised middle-class public how the ‘underclass’ lived, inaugurating a tradition of photographing the most powerless in society, which was built on by 20th-century photographers like Dorothea Lange. While Lange was photographing the rural poor of America’s dust bowl in the 1930s, British photographers like Bill Brandt, Edith Tudor-Hart and Humphrey Spender were documenting British slum life. Brandt made his name showcasing the polarities of class differences in British society. His first book, The English at Home (1936), juxtaposed poverty-stricken working-class neighbourhoods with images of the extravagant homes and lifestyles enjoyed by the British upper classes. Spender began his career photographing daily life in working-class communities for the Mass Observation movement while Tudor-Hart, a radical socialist and Jewish intellectual, photographed deprived areas across London and Wales, focusing on the working lives of women.

Between 1930 and 1950 – when two world wars and extensive bombing compounded the nation’s housing shortage – photographs of slum conditions in British cities taken by Brandt, Tudor-Hart, Spender and others began to feature regularly in the pages of popular photo magazines such as Picture Post, Weekly Illustrated and Lilliput. But did these widely consumed photographs of slum life – teeming in the official records and attracting the eye of documentary photographers – lead to any improvement in the lives of ‘slum dwellers’, forcing local authorities to implement social reform? Or did the visual tropes they promulgated merely reinscribe existing social and political structures that framed working-class people as a powerless group, at best, dependent on the philanthropy of middle-class elites and, at worst, as a filthy ‘underclass’ contaminating Britain’s urban centres?

In late 19th-century Britain, inadequate, overcrowded housing stock was becoming an urgent issue for local authorities. Cities were growing at an exponential rate, as agricultural workers flocked to urban areas to look for work: between 1851 and 1881, London’s population rose from 2.3 million to over 3.8 million. Overcrowding was endemic in central areas near the commercial markets that offered employment, and was fuelled by unregulated housing laws that favoured landlords and failed to compensate renters if they were evicted. By the century’s end, tens of thousands of Britain’s labouring classes lived in one- or two-room dwellings without proper sanitary facilities, leaving them exposed to diphtheria, tuberculosis, cholera and typhoid, diseases which at the time had no certain cure.

Over the second half of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century, a succession of acts were passed that gave local authorities increasing powers to purchase areas of old housing and pull down dwellings deemed unhealthy. As medical officers of health descended on the slums to document the worst offences to human wellbeing, the camera emerged as an important surveillance tool. A modern technology that promised to render reality far more faithfully than any illustration, the camera enabled inspectors to make extensive visual records of the housing stock under their purview. Their ‘realist’ photographs gave concrete shape to what housing ‘unfit for human habitation’ looked like and then helped to justify their destruction, displacing thousands of tenants.

The meaning of these photographs was tightly controlled by municipal officials. Consider this photograph of a Southwark slum, taken in 1923, commissioned by the housing section of London County Council’s Architects’ Department. It pictures a dark courtyard enclosed by grey-looking tenement buildings. Strung up between the houses is a washing line, hung with bright white sheets. To the left of the frame, a gaggle of small children watch the camera curiously. Although the paving stones are stained and uneven, there’s little to suggest that the houses in the street are actually insanitary. In fact, the clean washing suggests that care and attention has been paid to the cleanliness of the street by its residents. Yet the caption on the back of the photograph classifies the street as an ‘insanitary area’, guiding the viewer to see the narrow courtyard, dingy light and dirty pavement as evidence of urban decay. The caption, likely written by a sanitary inspector or medical officer of health, forecloses an interpretation of the photograph as anything other than evidence of substandard housing conditions.

In most local authority photographs of slums, humans appear as incidental figures, haunting the edges of the frame as if surplus to requirement. Huddled to one side of the image, the children in the photograph of the Southwark slum are framed as bystanders: the slum, and the filth and disease inscribed within it, take centre-stage. In an influential essay on 19th-century slum photographs of Quarry Hill in Leeds, John Tagg argues that the camera, used as an instrument of surveillance, coded slum inhabitants as a pliant, homogeneous mass. He argues that slum photography invited viewers to imagine an alternative environment: ‘a desirable space in which people will be changed … into disease-free, orderly, docile and disciplined subjects’. As I sift through images in the London Metropolitan Archives, I’m struck by the all-encompassing nature of the caption ‘insanitary area’, which seems to stigmatise the families who lived in such housing as filthy too – just another feature of the unhealthy urban landscape that, along with damp walls, broken windows and stained paving stones, needs to be ‘corrected’ in order to restore the city to health.

This stigmatising of the working-class subject reflects the prevailing attitude of the middle and upper classes in Victorian Britain, among whom it was widely held that the ‘slum dweller’ made the slum. In 1898, Charles Booth’s poverty map of London categorised slum residents as the ‘lowest class. Vicious, semi-criminal’, fuelling national anxieties that moral and social degeneration were linked to urban decay. The relative invisibility of slum housing, which was hidden in alleyways that had originally been used as stables, or behind the townhouses of the wealthy, allowed the slum to become a potent social imaginary onto which the middle classes could project their fears of disease, racial mixing, moral degeneracy and sexual deviance. By denying ‘slum dwellers’ any form of subjecthood in visual representations of their neighbourhood, local authority photographers reinforced power relations that placed working-class people at the bottom of Britain’s social hierarchy.

Where medical officers of health and sanitary inspectors targeted the lens primarily on the houses being torn down, documentary photographers focused instead on the often-abject conditions slum dwellers endured. ­I­­n both Britain and America, their gaze takes us beyond the street and into the domestic lives of the urban poor, bringing the blurry spectre of the slum dweller into focus for the first time. In How the Other Half Lives (1890), Riis showed immigrant families crowded into squalid rooms, their personal effects and total poverty starkly displayed. Having mastered the recently invented flash function, Riis was able to take photographs inside dimly lit buildings that had previously been beyond the camera’s reach. Yet Riis’s interest in photographing the working poor didn’t extend to feeling sympathy for their plight. His gaze was largely voyeuristic, and he exploited the subjecthood of working-class people to underline his own social mobility. Recalling his time on Mulberry Street, a notorious thoroughfare in New York, Riis wrote in distinctly othering and racialised terms: ‘I went poking about among the foul alleys and fouler tenements of the Bend when they [immigrants] slept in their filth … sounding the misery and the depravity of it to their depth.’ As some of the first social documentary photographs of slums, Riis’s images prefigure how representations of working-class people by documentary photographers would ignite ongoing debates about voyeurism, exploitation and the nature of reality in the documentary tradition.

In Britain, it wasn’t until the 1930s that documentary photography of slum life became widespread. The Great Depression had left the nation grappling with dismally high unemployment rates, a housing shortage and a fiscal crisis, forcing politicians to recognise that only a robust welfare state could ensure good quality housing for all citizens. As a direct result, the Housing Act (1930) empowered councils to make compulsory purchases of land and legally enforce mass clearance schemes. At the same time, it was becoming clear that documentary photography was a far more persuasive medium than text in campaigns for social reform. In response to the British public’s newly awakened interest in the everyday lives of ordinary people, picture editors of magazines and newspapers began to regularly commission photographs from documentarists revealing substandard living conditions across the country.

Public discourse around housing at this time was shot through with allusions to the new science of eugenics, with debates about environmental reform pivoting on whether unhealthy living conditions resulted from the unfitness of the slum dweller or the degraded environment of the slum itself. Proponents of eugenicist thought (found across the political spectrum) advocated for controlling reproduction among the ‘mentally defective’ or ‘degenerate’ populations living in deprived urban areas, effectively winnowing the population to produce a healthier human race and eliminate poverty. Documentarists, by contrast, sought to place the blame for the social problems of deprived urban areas on the appalling housing conditions endured by the inhabitants of such neighbourhoods, rather than their supposedly hereditary predilection for deviant behaviour. Photographers like Tudor-Hart, Spender and Brandt enjoyed the enormous reach of publishing in popular photo magazines, building on the assumed veracity of documentary photography to reveal the ‘realities’ of everyday life in slum streets. They approached areas such as the East End of London as the new terra incognita that would compel and fascinate middle-class audiences by letting them observe the lives of an exotic underclass whose social prospects might be brightened with their help.

In 1934, Weekly Illustrated published a photo essay entitled ‘Pull Down the Slums!’ A double-page spread, it deployed several visual strategies to establish a dialectic between the old, slum-ridden ‘Britain’ and the regenerated Britain of the future. ‘Slum Britain’ is represented through photographs of the jumbled rooftops cluttering the backyards of tenement houses and a close-up of the grating over a half-obscured basement, with a ‘front window’ opening for its residents (both likely taken by Brandt). There are children playing in a narrow street, and a family pictured ‘in a slum home in Wapping’, as the caption has it. These images sit in counterpoint to depictions of a new, modern block of flats in St Pancras and the green vistas of a garden suburb. Unlike the immigrants in Riis’s work, the slum dwellers here are presented as stoic victims of circumstance, an urban ‘residuum’ who must be helped to take advantage of the opportunities offered by improved housing. This framing was characteristic of photographs of working-class people in the 1930s. The photograph of the family in the slum interior – posed to resemble the very picture of domesticity, parents huddled over children and work, in a cluttered but clean home environment – is a vision of pathological social need. As the caption affirms: ‘they continue on the struggle to bring their children up in health and happiness!’

In some ways, this photo essay represents a continuation of 19th-century philanthropic discourses, in which charity is visited upon the urban poor by the middle classes, whose duty it was to provide relief. The largest photograph in the spread, of children playing in the street, biking and batting balls, offers a deliberate visual connection with Victorian slum photographs that portrayed children as the most vulnerable victims of disease and urban degradation. The accompanying article avows that ‘by far the greater number of rehoused workers and their families respond immediately to new and improved surroundings’, reinforcing the idea that slum dwellers must be transformed into healthier, more economically productive citizens by expert professional elites.

The idea that slum dwellers needed to be helped towards respectability often went hand in hand with an understanding of slum areas in Britain as foreign. In 1938, Picture Post published an article under the title ‘Whitechapel’, featuring photographs that presented the area as a ghetto within the city of London. The strapline ‘“Picture Post” turned a cameraman loose in Whitechapel’ evokes visions of an intrepid explorer mapping out a new danger zone in the urban jungle of the ‘inner city’. Indeed, the text frames Whitechapel as another country altogether: ‘You are in High Street, Whitechapel, but you may as well be in High Street, Poland.’ The accompanying photo essay intersperses what by now were typical images of the slums – photographs of children playing in ‘slum streets’; families seated around the dinner table; groups of women talking in the street – with photographs of Whitechapel’s Jewish residents. One of the largest photographs, captioned ‘The Yiddisher Parliament Meets’, pictures a group of Jewish men talking in a square (it may as well be Poland!). In other pictures, a Jewish tailor displays his wares and a bagel seller conducts his business.

The captions and article seem unsure of how to present this vision of racial mixing. One states: ‘to the average East Ender racial questions mean very little’, and yet the description of the Jewish men as a ‘Parliament’ belies deeply rooted antisemitic anxieties about Jewish domination. This is apparent again in the author’s unease about the Yiddish spoken on British streets: ‘What is this language jabbered so frantically on the pavements?’ To the editors of Picture Post, Whitechapel’s Jewish residents are an exotic and unknown quantity that requires glossing for the audience (‘Bygles are ring-shaped rolls of bread’). It is hard not to pick up echoes here of the way that non-white populations are characterised as an unknowable ‘other’ in colonial photography of the period. Even a photograph of a ‘slum street’ that would have been a familiar sight to readers of the 1930s is reconfigured in this Picture Post spread as a foreign and strange scene. ‘This is Their Outlook: Human beings live here, grow up here and die here – in the same world as you and me’ runs the image’s caption. Picture Post might have been committed to social democracy, but at the same time its visual coverage of slum life reified class difference, betraying anxieties about racial mixing and the impact of immigration on the visual landscape of the city.

While media coverage of slum life had begun to construct an image of the slum dweller as the helpless, if unknowable, victim of circumstance, photographic records of slum areas made by municipal councils continued to conflate slum dwellers with the disease and squalor engendered by their own living quarters. Much like the local authorities of the 19th century, throughout the 1930s, housing and public health officials visited slum areas to photograph buildings due for demolition.

A photograph album made by Hackney’s medical officer of health between 1930-35 for a Ministry of Health inquiry into slum clearances reveals how 19th-century attitudes about the moral laxity of slum dwellers found new expression in the slum photography of the interwar years. One page, entitled ‘Dirty and Filthy Premises’ features two black-and-white photographs of a slum interior at 1A Big Hill, Hackney. The first shows an empty scullery from which: ‘seventeen vanloads of filthy furniture and effects were removed by council for disinfection & destruction 1934.’ The second is of a cluttered living space, the only available light picking out piles of dishes and kitchenware that are nevertheless neatly stacked on the table. Barely discernible in the background, the owner of the premises can be seen standing by the door, blending into the general darkness of the interior as if the camera’s gaze has passed right over her body. There is no record of the resident’s name, or how she felt about her belongings removed and destroyed. Under the surveillant gaze of the camera of the medical officer of health, the slum dweller is dehumanised – implicated with the decay and squalor of her environment.

The minutes of a town hall meeting held by the Metropolitan Borough of Hackney in 1932 offer a poignant record of the opinions and concerns of tenants who would be displaced by slum clearance orders. Their objections reveal that the prospect of being rehoused in blocks of flats, without gardens or the opportunity to keep pets, was dismaying for many tenants. A tenant named Mr Relton was among the reluctantly dispersed; he tells the lawyer for Hackney Council: ‘You have sunk me, that is all.’ Mr Kidd, another tenant, describes the newly built flats as ‘barracks’ and ‘nothing more than slums’. ‘Why not houses? Why not let us remain as we are?’, he pleads. Mr Kidd’s words speak to the isolation that many slum dwellers felt at being moved into blocks of flats ­– ostensibly an opportunity to join the respectable middle classes, but at the cost of being able to talk to neighbours and build close-knit communities. Strikingly, many tenants thought of living in tenement housing as a marker of English identity, and distanced their own condemned homes from slums in racialised terms: ‘Having travelled the world a bit I know what slums are. You have not got them in England. We are Englishmen and want to live as Englishmen.’ While ‘slum dwellers’ were exoticised by the media as a mysterious foreign ‘other’ who lived right under the noses of the middle classes, working-class tenants saw the neighbourhoods they lived in as quintessentially English, a vision grounded in the ability to have a garden, speak to one’s neighbours and live in a house instead of a multistorey block.

Following the Second World War, media coverage of poverty-stricken slum conditions gave way to exuberant images of politicians posing at slum clearance sites. By 1956, 35,000 houses in Britain were condemned or demolished in a major government drive to clear slum areas, and more than 200,000 people had been rehoused. Press photographs taken of MP Duncan Sandys, the Conservative Minister for Housing, show him striding through the rubble of an East End slum-clearance area with a group of aides. Sandys had vowed to knock down Britain’s remaining ‘back-to-back’ streets and build modern flats in their place; in 1956, he embarked on a tour of cities with the worst slum areas, beginning in London. The photographs, taken by a photographer from the Keystone Press Agency, play on the contrasts between the polished group of officials, with their wool coats and shiny shoes, and the rubble-strewn ground around them. Small visual details, such as a child’s doll, abandoned in the debris of a demolished slum home, or the scrap of floral wallpaper on the wall Sandys is poised to knock down – pickaxe held for the high swing, his face scrunched in concentration – are the only reminders of the generations of people who made their lives in the area.

Sandys would have known that slums remained a potent symbol of urban decay in the British cultural consciousness. Posing among them was a photo opportunity, in the modern sense, in that images of him literally pulling down the slums helped align the Conservative government with rallying cries for a regenerated postwar Britain – a vision that played well with their middle- and upper-class voters. Read with the privilege of hindsight, however, these images of the political elite smashing through former working-class neighbourhoods seem more prescient of the accusations of social cleansing that were levelled at local councils from the 1960s onwards. What’s more, many of the tenants removed from slums were unable to afford the rents of the new flat blocks, and were forced to leave to seek lower rent in older council houses in the suburbs or, ironically, cheaper substandard housing in the private sector. It was the ‘respectable’ working classes, then, rather than the poorest tenants, who took up residence in the new accommodation.

As any photographic theorist would remind us, the meanings inscribed in photographs are never fixed. Photographs are palimpsests, their significance written over by successive generations who interpret them within their own historical context. How then, is a modern viewer – who supposes themselves to be visually literate – meant to approach slum photography? It is tempting to look at these photographs and imagine that we are being granted privileged access to a window into the past. Yet just as medical officers of health and documentary photographers projected their own agendas and prejudices onto the images they produced, so too does the modern viewer. There is a danger of 19th-century photographs of working-class neighbourhoods becoming quaint, Dickensian-style emblems of a bygone era, signified by the figure of the stoic cockney, urchin or street hawker – a vision no more true than the Victorian philanthropist’s imaginary of the slum as a den of vice. Likewise, Brandt’s photographs of stark poverty have, over the years, lost their affective force as images capable of mobilising public concern. As the decades have passed, his photographs of the actual hardships of the working poor – already highly staged and artificial representations of ‘reality’ – have become further romanticised as icons of 20th-century documentary practice.

It is impossible, then, to really ‘see’ a historical photograph without interpreting it anachronistically. Modern viewers might look at a Brandt photograph and still be moved, not by the poor housing conditions of interwar Britain so much as by their similarity to images of temporary refuges and hostels in the UK, or photographs of slum landscapes across the global South which regularly feature in the news. At the same time, the modern rage for ancestral history has seen archive photographs acquire new meaning as family photographs. Images of ‘slum dwellers’ become intimate traces of a relative for the researcher who comes to the archive not as a social observer, but as a descendant in search of a lost family history.

What remains constant across these interpretations, however, is the power relations of the photographic encounter. Intended for the gaze of groups who hold power, slum photographs ensure the continual disempowerment of the urban poor. As Susan Sontag writes in On Photography (1977), to take a picture is to – however momentarily – betray an interest in maintaining things as they are: ‘to be in complicity with whatever makes a subject interesting, worth photographing – including, when that is the interest, another person’s pain or misfortune’. As documents that operate to record rather than intervene in adversity, slum photographs expose the limits of our compassion as much as they demand it.

There are no hard and fast set of rules for how to price your photography, which can make it difficult to know how to set your prices in order to make a decent profit without driving away too many potential clients. If you are new to the business of photography, check out this fantastic video tutorial that will show you some fantastic advice on pricing your work. 

Coming to you from James Quantz Jr, this excellent video tutorial offers a wealth of useful advice for pricing your photo work. One of the most important topics Quantz discusses is paying attention to the context of your pricing and not just copying that of another photographer who produces similar work. For example, while I might be producing similar work to another photographer in New York City, here in Cleveland, I certainly could not charge the same absolute prices, as factors like cost of living, market demand, competitor pricing must be considered and factored in to find the correct equivalent price. Check out the video above for the full rundown.

If you would like to learn more about the business of photography, check out “Making Real Money: The Business of Commercial Photography With Monte Isom!”

Jackson Hole, Wyoming is one of the most beautiful, yet pricey places you might consider visiting. It’s a popular spot for wealthy millionaires and billionaires to spend a few days in their second home during summers and ski seasons, as well as ordinary folks who love the skiing and national park touring.

While winter is what Jackson is known for, more people actually visit in the summer, despite the expense. Fall is an even better time to visit, before the snow starts to drop. 

So what’s the attraction for Jackson?

It’s a really fun, classic western town that wears its history on its sleeve, (“The last of the Old West” is the town motto) with live shootout recreations in the center of Jackson Square, the classic Million Dollar Cowboy Bay right in the heart of town, where patrons can sit at the bar on a saddle, and dozens of western wear shops lining the streets.

And it’s near not just one amazing, major national park, but two. Jackson is a ten-minute drive to the Grand Tetons National Park, and 40 minutes from Yellowstone National Park. The Tetons is arguably even more impressive, at least in the summer and fall. Both parks attract just under 4 million visitors yearly.

The area has “exceptional wildlife” said Zeb Hermanson, a local photographer who works at the Jackson camera store, Wyoming Camera Outfitters. “Outside of Africa or Alaska, we have some of the most diverse wildlife you’ll find anywhere.”

Wildlife and smartphones? Yes, it can be done! As always, I filmed the latest episode of #PhotowalksTV on two iPhones, the 13 and 14 Pro Max models, the Samsung Galaxy S23+, a GoPro Hero 11 and my DJI Mavic Air 2S drone.

The Galaxy really came in handy for the moose shots, as it has a stronger, 10x optical zoom that just knocks the 3x of the iPhone out of contention in these types of situations. (Note the close-up of the moose below!) The iPhones did great for the traditional wide-screen landscape scenes one would associate with visiting a national park. I couldn’t fly my drone in the park (a no-no) but I got great shots in Victor and Teton Valley, over the hill.

Did I miss having the big camera and huge zoom lens? Sure, but my body appreciated not having to lug them. And besides, how much closer did I really need to be to the moose? If I zoomed in any closer, I wouldn’t catch the antlers.

—Schwabacher’s Landing. About 16 miles from Jackson, this is a popular place for picnickers to sit and watch the moose graze in the mornings and early evenings. It’s a pretty safe bet you’ll find the moose if you come during those times.

—Mormon Row. Dating back to the 1870s, these old barns belonging to settlers still look incredible today against the backdrop of the Tetons.

—Jenny Lake. Known as the centerpiece of the park, here you’ll get your best view of the Tetons themselves. If you want to go beyond your basic sighting, you can hop a boat here (for a fee) and take a little ride to another part of the lake, where a short hike will bring you to a wonderful, huge waterfall.

—Jackson. Downtown is a fun old western town for walking around—but hold onto your wallet! Everything is pricey. Ice cream cones at the popular Moo’s start at $7.50!

—Ansel Adams. The Snake River Overlook is where the legendary photographer captured the image of the Teton Range meeting the waters. But when he did it, he had an un-obstructed view, which today is covered in trees. A drone would solve the issue, but that’s a no-no! If you can get high (like on a step-ladder) when you visit you’ll get a better shot.

How to get to Jackson: 

There is an airport, believe it or not, right within the National Park. Alaska and American fly non-stop, while United stops through Denver. Average fare is around $450. Driving from the Los Angeles takes about 14 hours, up route 15, through Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. The drive is five hours away from Salt Lake City or eight hours from Denver. 

Today I’m sharing my favorite accessories for outdoor and adventure photography. The things that make the list are the things I don’t leave behind when I know I have to keep up on a big adventure while also producing high-quality images. Too much gear will weigh me down but the right gear will make my life and photos better.

Before we were professional photographers, my husband/business partner/adventure partner, Marc Bergreen and I loved shooting photos of our own adventures. In fact, it’s what led to where we are today. We used to go on hikes together and I’d always be waiting around (somewhat patiently) for him while he took photos of landscapes or wildflowers or whatever human-powered adventure sport we were doing that day.

Eventually, I told him I needed a camera too and we could do this photography thing together. It obviously quickly became more than a hobby and now we’ve had the opportunity to photograph professional athletes pushing boundaries, trail crews taking care of our recreational landscapes, and adventure lovers like ourselves spending time outdoors as a way of life. This list of accessories helps make telling impactful stories possible.

Camera Clip

The trick to being able to hike efficiently and also take pictures is to have an accessible camera. And the trick to having an accessible camera is having a camera strap system that makes it possible to carry the camera and easily take a picture.

Before Peak Design made a clip, I tried a number of bags and pouches that mounted in various ways but none of them were as quick as having your camera securely connected to your shoulder strap. I tried using an old-fashioned strap as well but that always felt insecure when it came to slightly more rugged sections of trail.

Now we each have Peak Design clips that go on the shoulder strap of any backpack or even a running vest making it easy to carry the camera while hiking, running, or scrambling. Additionally, we use their tab system to easily take a more traditional camera strap on and off. Sometimes a camera strap is in the way but other times you need it.

When we photograph places with heights or water, we often find it important to have the security of a camera strap. This works well because as soon as you’re away from a hazardous place, you can easily remove the strap and stow it away to have the freedom of an untethered camera.

Lightweight and Compact Tripod

I don’t need a tripod that often, but it’s a problem to not have one when we do need it. Therefore, my preference is a nice lightweight and compact tripod. I also appreciate it if it’s easy to use in the dark since a lot of the time we’re using it for star photos.

There are a lot of big fancy tripods out there with incredible features that I don’t need. What I do need is something I can set up quickly with legs that won’t break.

Even though lightweight tripods can be flimsy in the wind, you can easily mimic the sturdiness of a bigger tripod by hanging a backpack or other heavy item from the center post to give it more stability. The main two subjects we need a tripod for are shooting long exposures of water and stars. Both of these can be easily accomplished with a quality but compact set of tripod legs.

When it comes to the head of the tripod, I’m not too picky. Sure, having a smooth bullhead that is highly adjustable is nice when you’re working close to the car, but out in the backcountry, anything that locks down securely is good enough for me!

Drone

Talk about making our job easier. Now, Marc’s the drone pilot, not me, so I feel a little unfair saying this but it seems like drone footage is the easiest way to get the most dramatic footage. We can climb a tree, scale a mountain, or stand in a river to get the shot and it still doesn’t compare to the impact of seeing things from the POV, point of view, of the drone.

Having the ability to place a camera nearly anywhere is so helpful. Want to get the classic top-down perspective, no problem! Being able to fly all around a subject and pick any angle is so helpful in getting awesome images. It can be helpful to think of a drone as a way to find the most compelling composition.

Many people fly it way up in the air which is nice but I prefer to look at it as just another camera that isn’t restricted by having a piece of land to stand on. You can fly it over water, off the edge of a cliff, or any other place that might otherwise prohibit access. I guess a drone isn’t really an accessory, it’s another camera. But regardless of how you classify a drone, it’s a worthy addition to your kit.

Headlamp

A headlamp is a good insurance policy to have on any adventure but especially if we’re planning to get caught out after dark. Since we almost always shoot a sunset if we can, we’re often hiking out of a location in the dark. We’re also shooting blue hour and star photos which require some sort of night vision to see what we’re doing.

Or, it’s not uncommon that we’re starting pre-dawn in order to catch a sunrise. In that case, we need a headlamp for packing our bag or seeing where we are. I’m not sure I have to argue more for a headlamp, put it on your gear list as well as extra batteries. If you’re traveling with others, it’s often helpful to bring an extra just in case someone forgets theirs.

First Aid Kit

Nothing is worse than being injured in the backcountry without any assistance. Carrying a first aid kit is essential to keeping yourself and others safe. There are a lot of hazards with outdoor adventures but more often than not, the first aid kit provides a little comfort that can allow you to stay and play.

Having some tweezers to remove a splinter before it becomes an infection can be the type of preventative care that will keep you out in the woods longer allowing you to capture more images.

Additionally, more important than having the biggest first aid kit is having the knowledge to go know how to treat injuries. I strongly suggest you find a wilderness first aid class to learn the basics of how to deal with medical problems in a backcountry setting.

Filters

I wasn’t always a proponent of filters but I have come to really appreciate the improvement they can make to your images. My most commonly used filter is a simple circular polarizer (CP). If you haven’t tried one, I strongly suggest you pick up a CP filter and learn how it can be used to bring the colors out. It cuts reflections from everything from foliage to water. You’ll notice the strongest effect when your lens is at a 90-degree angle from the sun but it can help in almost any scene.

Two other filters that I use less often are the variable neutral density (VND) filter and the graduated neutral density (GND) filter. The VND is great if you want to shoot at f/1.8 in the middle of the day. The GND filter is great if you’re shooting a bright sunset and want to help balance the exposure of the sky with the foreground. With improvements in dynamic range the GND has become less necessary but it can make a big difference if you’re working with an older camera that doesn’t have as broad a range between highlights and shadows.

The last filter I use occasionally is the basic UV filter. This is basically just a little extra protection for the front of the lens. It’s great if you’re shooting things like mountain biking and you want to get your camera right up in the flying dirt without having to worry about scratching the front element.

When I’m out on a shoot, I pack all these filters into a small pouch for safekeeping. While the CP filters stay on my lenses most of the time, it’s nice to have a place to tuck them away when it gets dark. CP filters will darken your exposure by about 1.5 stops so it’s important to take them off when shooting the night sky or any other dark scene.

Backpack

All this gear needs to be accessible if it’s going to be helpful which is where a backpack comes in. We have grown partial to the Shimoda Designs packs which offer an excellent balance between a capable adventure pack and a camera pack.

They offer some of the same features as high-quality adventure bags without being excessively heavy. Additionally, they offer back panel access to your camera gear which is optimal when you don’t want to set your back down in the mud to get to your camera gear.

There are also some great bag options from LowePro as well as Fstop. Before I had a nice dedicated camera bag, I often used a small shoulder bag (check out Mountainsmith) with a camera cube inside. This is still an excellent way to have access to your camera gear and the ability to fit it inside a larger adventure bag when you’re not using the camera.

Summary

Everything I learned about photography I initially learned from Marc and that includes knowing way too much about gear for someone who doesn’t care that much about it. You see, Marc loves gear but I love being efficient. Therefore, this list is a compilation of what’s fun according to a gear lover but also what’s necessary according to someone who cares more about function.

Interestingly as cameras and editing technology have gotten better, we actually need fewer accessories than we used to. Cameras can now easily shoot photos and videos with the flip of a switch and image stabilization makes shooting slow shutter speeds without a tripod a realistic option.

Simple is best. That applies to a lot of things but certainly adventure photography gear. Especially if you consider the fact that a lot of outdoor and adventure sports are gear-intensive too and you have to save room for your ice axe, rope, jacket, and snacks too.

About the author: Brenda Bergreen is a Colorado wedding photographer, videographer, yoga teacher, and writer who works alongside her husband at Bergreen Photography. With their mission and mantra “love. adventurously.” they are dedicated to telling adventurous stories in beautiful places.