Using a CPL (Circular Polarizing) filter for landscape photography can significantly enhance your images by reducing glare, improving color saturation, and increasing contrast. Here are some tips for using a CPL filter to create stunning landscape photographs:

Understand the CPL filter

A CPL filter is designed to reduce reflections and glare from nonmetallic surfaces like water, glass, and foliage. It can also darken blue skies, making clouds pop and enhancing the overall contrast in your landscape shots.

Choose the right filter size

Ensure your CPL filter is the correct size for your lens. Different lenses have different filter thread sizes, so you’ll need to match the filter to your lens diameter. I’ve been using the OKKO Magnetic CPL Filter lately with great success. You’ll usually find the lens diameter on the edge of the lens.

Mount the CPL filter

Screw the OKKO Magnetic Adfaptor ring to your lens. The CPL filter will magnetically attach to the adapter. So easy. Once installed you need to align it correctly. You can rotate the filter to control its effect, so make sure it’s secure but adjustable. This is where sometimes the screw on variable CPL can come loose. The magnetic CPL is a great option.

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Find the optimal angle

Look through your camera’s viewfinder or use the Live View mode. Rotate the CPL filter until you see the desired effect. For example, if you want to darken the sky or reduce water reflections, rotate the filter until you achieve the desired result.

Use the “Rule of 90”

To maximize the effect of a CPL filter, it’s often recommended to shoot with the sun at a 90-degree angle to the direction you’re shooting. This can help darken the sky and reduce glare on water or glass.

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Adjust exposure settings

When you add a CPL filter, it reduces the amount of light entering your lens. Adjust your camera settings (aperture, shutter speed, or ISO) accordingly to maintain the correct exposure.

Experiment

Don’t be afraid to experiment with the CPL filter’s rotation and settings. Try different angles and observe how they affect the scene. Keep adjusting until you achieve the desired look. Great for working with B&W images too.

Combine with other filters

CPL filters can be used in conjunction with other filters, such as ND (Neutral Density) filters, to achieve more creative effects and control exposure.

Be mindful of distortion

Be aware that using a CPL filter on a wide-angle lens may sometimes lead to uneven polarization, resulting in uneven skies or darkening in parts of the frame. Pay attention to this and adjust as needed.

Post-processing

While CPL filters can significantly improve your photos in-camera, some post-processing may still be necessary. You can fine-tune the image in software like Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop to achieve your desired look.

Using a CPL filter in landscape photography can be a game-changer, providing you with the tools to capture more vibrant and captivating scenes. Remember that practice and experimentation are key to mastering this technique.

American photographer’s special connection to Hong Kong’s champion horse | HK Racing | South China Morning Post

Eclipse Award-winning snapper Alex Evers travels the world taking pictures of great gallopers, but none gets him more excited than Golden Sixty

%0D%0D%0DRead more: https://www.scmp.com/sport/racing/article/3241810/american-photographers-special-connection-hong-kongs-champion-horse”>

Eclipse Award-winning snapper Alex Evers travels the world taking pictures of great gallopers, but none gets him more excited than Golden Sixty

by Mark Worwood

on Thursday, November 16, 2023 7:49 PM

Three-time Hong Kong Horse of the Year Golden Sixty has millions of fans around the world, but possibly none bigger than American photographer Alex Evers.

In this week’s Tongue Tie Off, Eclipse Award winner Evers talks about how the Jockey Club scouted him, the way in which Derek Leung Ka-chun’s only Group One victory transformed his international career, and of course, the special connection he feels to Golden Sixty.

What was your introduction to racing?

My parents would go to work, and they’d drop me at my grandfather’s house. He’d go to the racetrack every day, and I’d go with him when I was three or four. I’d get a $2 bet in every race, and he’d let me keep 10 per cent of whatever I won, as long as I didn’t tell Grandma. My earliest racing memories are of Alysheba winning the 1987 Kentucky Derby, then a couple of years later seeing Sunday Silence run in person and go for the Triple Crown – he won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes but lost the Belmont Stakes. It cemented my love of racing.

All I wanted to do was be a jockey, but I got too big. I wanted to be involved in racing in any capacity, so I went to the University of Arizona because it had a racetrack programme. I lasted 21 days. I’d been drawing horses all of my life – going to the racetrack and sketching – then I picked up a camera because I figured it’d be easier than drawing. My photography career went from there.

Who taught you to take pictures?

I went to photography school for one month before I got into an argument with the dean after I shot my first Kentucky Derby. He said the school owned the rights to my pictures. I said, ‘You don’t because I don’t go to your school any more’. That was the end of my schooling. Pretty much everything I’ve learned about photography I’ve either taught myself or picked up from working with my mentor.

Photography was my passport into racing. I’d no way to get into the sport other than taking pictures. I’d exhausted all other options. I’d nothing to fall back on, so I’m fortunate it’s all worked out.

How did you get on the Jockey Club’s radar?

In August 2017, I attended the first Equestricon, a racing convention at Saratoga Springs. Pat Cummings was working for the Jockey Club at the time. He’d been at this new event, walked into the photography panel discussion and heard me speak. Afterwards, we bumped into each other, and he said, ‘You should come to Hong Kong.’ I took some unpaid leave from my job and used my airline credits from my recent wedding to get flights to and from Hong Kong.

It was the Hong Kong International Races [HKIR] meeting in December 2017. I had a plan of all the stuff I wanted to do, but my batteries were dying, and my cameras were shorting because the wireless signals were mixing. I’d come all this way, and my shoot was going horrendously. I was a mental mess.

Then, Beauty Generation won the Hong Kong Mile. Derek Leung got off the horse, grabbed him by his blinkers and kissed him. I was right there, shooting with a tight lens. I posted my shot on Twitter – now X – and Pat said, ‘Oh, my god! It’s an amazing photo. We’d love to buy it’. The Jockey Club bought a handful of frames from my HKIR shoot and invited me to the Classic Series later that season. I’ve been coming to Hong Kong ever since.

Sunday Silence is your favourite horse of all time, but who’s your favourite active one?

Golden Sixty, no doubt. My connection to him goes way deeper than just a horse on the racetrack. He’d been sick after winning the 2020 Hong Kong Classic Mile, and everyone said he couldn’t win the Classic Cup (1,800m), but he got a split between Champion’s Way and More Than This and unleashed an incredible run. I’ve got a picture of Ryan Moore tipping his cap to Vincent Ho Chak-yiu after the race. Then, because of Covid, I had to watch him win the Derby from home. I was excited for Vincent and the horse’s connections, but I was heartbroken not to be there.

I didn’t think I’d make it back to Hong Kong, but I did for last year’s HKIR, albeit with heaps of Covid protocols. One morning at trackwork, California Spangle walked past me. I stopped shooting. He snapped his head around and looked into my soul. At that moment, I knew California Spangle would win the Group One Hong Kong Mile, not Golden Sixty. When that’s what played out, I hadn’t felt that disappointed about a race result since Alysheba lost to Ferdinand by a nose in the 1987 Group One Breeders’ Cup Classic (2,000m). I went to Golden Sixty’s barn after the Mile to set up some cameras, and he was squealing. He was so annoyed he’d lost.

Seven weeks later, it was the Group One Stewards’ Cup (1,600m) – the eagerly awaited rematch between Golden Sixty and California Spangle, with Group One Hong Kong Cup (2,000m) hero Romantic Warrior added to the mix for an extra touch of spice. Golden Sixty saw California Spangle in the saddling enclosure next to him. His ears pinned back. He started losing it. He kicked. He snorted. I’d never seen a horse behave like he was behaving. I walked out with Vincent. I told him, ‘There’s no way that horse is ever beating your horse ever again’.

Finally, what are your favourite frames?

Maybe it’s recency bias, but this year, I made a shot of Vincent and Golden Sixty after they’d beaten Karis Teetan and Romantic Warrior in the Group One Hong Kong Gold Cup (2,000m). Vincent rarely shows emotion, but he pumped his fists in the air, and Golden Sixty flicked his head into my camera. I screwed up the exposure, but the picture is in the moment. It’s pretty special.

Then, on Champions Day, I snapped a really cool remote, wide-angled image of Vincent and Golden Sixty winning the Group One Champions Mile from Beauty Joy and California Spangle, with the Sha Tin grandstand full of people and several high-rise towers in the background.

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A drone image showing the beautiful but harsh conditions faced by greenkeepers throughout winter has been revealed as the overall winner of the British & International Golf Greenkeepers Association’s Annual Photographic Competition sponsored by Syngenta.

Thetford first assistant greenkeeper and BIGGA member David Ball’s image was chosen by judges as the overall winner for the 2023 competition, with the selection committee also taking into account the results of a public vote held across BIGGA’s social media accounts.

The image was taken by drone in January over Thetford’s 5th hole at around 7.30am. It shows sunlight breaking through the clouds as a layer of mist rolls into shot. The fairways and surrounding trees are crisp with a layer of frost.

Ball said of his winning shot: “We greenkeepers are privileged to experience these times of day that most people don’t get to see during their working hours. I was just lucky to be in the right place at the right time on this beautiful morning. It is such an honour to win this award – so thank you to BIGGA and Syngenta.”

BIGGA’s annual photographic competition is a celebration of the wonderful golfing landscape and the role greenkeepers play in shaping it for golfers and the wider public to enjoy. Twelve images were selected in total for the annual BIGGA calendar, with winners also chosen in the separate categories of Greenkeeping, Landscape and Wildlife.

BIGGA CEO Jim Croxton said: “BIGGA members work in some spectacular environments and each year the judges struggle to separate the entries, such is the quality of submissions. It’s always fascinating to see how the public votes when we post the finalists on our social media channels.

“David Ball’s entry stood out to us as it showcases the beautiful golf course at Thetford at a time that golfers will rarely see it – deep in the depths of winter – yet there are greenkeepers present, putting in the hard work that makes golf possible when warmer weather returns. Congratulations to all the winners and thank you once again to our valued sponsors at Syngenta.”

As overall competition winner, Ball won a DJI Mini 2 SE Drone and a framed print of his image to be presented at BTME 2024 at Harrogate in January. Each of the category winners will receive a £150 Love2Shop voucher.

All 12 images selected to form the BIGGA desktop calendar can be viewed on the BIGGA website, while a downloadable version of the calendar for use on a desktop background is available here.

My uncle Bill Keightley, who has died aged 101, was a photographer who specialised in taking pictures of aircraft. He spent most of his career at the Short Brothers aerospace company in Belfast, beginning his photography during the second world war. Some of his work, now of historical interest, is displayed at the Ulster Transport Museum.

Bill began his job at a time when safety measures were rudimentary. He hung out of one plane to photograph another, his foot jamming the door open while his hands held the camera. If things got bumpy, someone might grab his shirt.

Commissioned to photograph Northern Ireland for an aerial map, he lost several pairs of spectacles over a period of a few weeks as successive pairs fell out of the open door to the ground below. He loved the work and always said that he was being paid to do his hobby.

The seventh of 10 children, Bill was born near Ballinderry in County Derry. His parents were Annie (nee Orr), a nurse, who died when Bill was five, and Isaac Keightley, a farmer. He grew up in rural poverty. Hunger was never far away. After leaving school at age 14 he moved to Belfast, where, after taking on a variety of jobs, he began working in the wages department at Short Brothers. He acquired a camera, and on one occasion was asked by his employers to photograph a Short Brothers plane that was flying over Belfast Lough. The photograph came out so well that in 1942 he joined the company’s photographic and printing department.

Bill met his future wife, Ella Wright, at a cycling club in the late 1930s. They married in 1950. The club organised cycling trips throughout Ireland. In return for bringing sugar and other goods hard to find in wartime Belfast back over the border, Bill’s boss paid him when these trips took place in work time.

He remained at Shorts for the rest of his career, mainly photographing aircraft in Belfast and also travelling for work. He covered the Farnborough airshow in Hampshire annually, went to Benbecula in the outer Hebrides and once to Egypt.

Later he became deputy head of the photography department.

After retiring from Shorts in 1986, Bill worked locally for McMeekins, doing photography work for exhibition stands. He finally stopped in 1996.

Bill aged well, looking younger than his years. When his youngest sister, Nessa, was in hospital, Bill visited regularly. One day he found her laughing. A doctor had told her he had spoken with her son. That turned out to be Bill, five years her senior.

Aged 100 Bill commented to his son Alec that he had never ridden in an open-top sports car, and so Alec arranged for him to do so. Thrilled by the experience, Bill was only disappointed that Alec did not drive faster.

Ella predeceased him. Bill is survived by his sons, Alec and Gareth, and four grandchildren, Lex, Nadine, Allison and Thomas.

The Crown

Two Photographs

Season 6

Episode 2

Editor’s Rating

4 stars

****

Photo: Daniel Escale/Netflix

“Two Photographs” comes off as the most anti-Diana episode of season six so far, unfairly painting the adrift princess as the personification of scandal and poor judgment, while the queen continues tut-tutting her ex-daughter-in-law’s behavior from the confines of Balmoral Castle. What the queen doesn’t seem to understand, after decades on the job, is that photos of Diana are still big business.

The cold open features interviews with two distinctly different photographers. First, we have Mario Brenna, the real-life paparazzo who allegedly earned $5 million for the world rights to the first photos documenting Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed’s romance. Brenna chillingly talks about how paparazzi must “be like hunters, killers,” while he breaches a wall to capture two unnamed celebrities mid-fight.

Next, we have Brenna’s polar opposite: the sedate Scottish portrait photographer Duncan Muir (dude wears a tweed coat, ’nuff said), who has picked up a side hustle taking pics of the royal family. Muir appears to be a fictional character and serves as The Crown’s official acknowledgment of Queen Elizabeth’s death in 2022. He’s a guy who calls himself a “proud Elizabethan” and gets giddy when Her Majesty offers a kind hello during a public engagement. Muir spends most of his interview blathering about how the queen united the country and, quite accurately, how “we’ll all miss her terribly when she’s gone.”

Following the credits, Buckingham Palace staff alert the senior royals to the latest problem surrounding the Princess of Wales, with Princess Anne translating for the queen, who apparently doesn’t speak subtle racist: Diana hanging out with the Fayed family is a bad look because the government is afraid Mohamed Al-Fayed will use his new friend as leverage for his long-denied British citizenship. (Mohamed, who died in September 2023, never became a British citizen.)

“Oh, that girl,” sighs the queen.

Her Majesty isn’t wrong with that sentiment, just misguided. The way The Crown tells it, Diana is little more than a sitting duck. While she and Dodi are canoodling on the Jonikal, Mohamed is calling his security guy and demanding a “progress report,” even going so far as putting the maid on the phone to confirm whether Dodi and Diana are “intimate.” GROSS.

Even grosser? As soon as the maid assures her boss that Dodi and Diana share a room and a bed, Mohamed executes the next part of his plan: hiring the ruthless Brenna to capture photos of his son and the Princess of Wales in a torrid embrace. (There is no proof that Al-Fayed hired Brenna, but that’s what’s so good about The Crown — it’s easy to believe his character would.)

Oblivious to Mohamed’s machinations, and just before Brenna snaps his now-infamous photos, Diana and Dodi chat about the rest of her summer plans, but their lighthearted banter has so many morbid overtones that it’s hard not to be completely spooked by this scene. Diana talks about how she “doesn’t get the boys back until the 31st,” Dodi remains vague about his engagement to Kelly Fisher, and then they start flirting — and making out — while discussing land-mine survivors???

Upon Diana’s return to London, news spreads that, somehow, a paparazzo has gotten photos of her and Dodi together on Mohamed’s yacht. How strange, remarks Diana, because wasn’t their location supposed to be private? The queen’s private secretary, Robert Fellowes, warns Her Majesty that these photos were the subject of “the fiercest bidding war in Fleet Street history,” with the Sunday Mirror paying £250,000 for the rights. And because this was the pre-digital, pre-smartphone age, an extensive advertising campaign will lead up to the photos’ publication.

But Diana can’t worry about that right now because she’s about to see her sons for the last time. William and Harry head off to Balmoral with their father but not without William, still the audience’s stand-in, mentioning to his mother that Dodi is “weird.” Oh, listen to your son, Diana!

The Crown also gives Diana and Charles a nice final exchange here, with Charles commending Diana for the work she has been doing to raise awareness about land mines and the pair making a mutual promise to be “brilliant” at co-parenting. Maybe if Charles, Diana’s “friend [and partner] of her dreams” had said Dodi was weird, she might have listened. But that’s idealistic thinking, just like this whole interaction is in the first place.

While the royals are in Scotland, Diana heads to Bosnia to visit land-mine victims. These scenes are nice reminders of what we all knew back then: She really was in her element doing humanitarian work. Although Diana did go to Bosnia in August 1997, The Crown takes creative liberties here with its reenactment of the princess’s walk through a minefield. That famous event, with Diana covered in protective equipment, took place in Angola in January 1997.

Unfortunately for Diana, nobody cares that she risked her life in an actual minefield or that she’s championing a serious cause: At the time of her minefield walk, newspapers featuring an 11-page spread of her and Dodi frolicking in the Mediterranean arrive at Balmoral. The queen is disgusted. William is humiliated. Charles is oddly curious; Harry catches his pa sneaking a peek, LOL.

Mohamed, on the other hand, is delighted.

Diana attempts a press conference focusing on her humanitarian mission, but all the paps want to ask about is her relationship with Dodi. In many ways, this trip was an abject failure, and it might have caused Diana to slip back into her old self-harm habits: We see her biting into her finger so deeply it leaves a mark.

Never mind the effect of the photos on Diana’s mental health — the palace has gone into full damage-control mode. Charles’s private secretary wants to take advantage of the situation with a “counterphoto.” The intention is to emphasize that Diana’s Saint-Tropez lifestyle is synonymous with scandal while Charles’s Balmoral lifestyle is synonymous with dignity. It doesn’t take much to convince Charles because he knows the drill. William and Harry, however, have conditions: They’re not wearing a kilt or carrying a “sheep’s crook” like their pa.

“Trustworthy photographer” Muir, with his tweed jacket and dependable Volvo, is hired to take the famous family snaps of the Prince of Wales, Prince William, and Prince Harry at Balmoral in the summer of 1997. (In reality, Arthur Edwards served as photographer.) Although William and Harry initially aren’t keen on the photo shoot, they eventually warm up to Muir, who encourages them to have fun with each other.

The next round of papers arrives, and the photos are a massive success. Most important, the queen is pleased. The family needs all the good publicity it can get because, as Her Majesty shares with Prince Philip, Diana’s antics are getting worse. The latest piece of gossip is that Diana just flew 160 miles in the Harrods helicopter to visit her psychic friend in Derbyshire — so Dodi could get some direction. Even though I don’t at all like the way Diana is treated in this episode, I do have to agree with Philip’s pitch-perfect reaction here: “Spare me!”

The bottom line is that so much of Diana’s life was a tragedy well before she met her catastrophic death. Maybe if the queen had provided compassion instead of judgment, Diana would still be alive today. But as The Crown has proved time and again, the queen will always choose duty over understanding, which is why her closing monologue, while predictable, remains so infuriating to hear. Over a montage of paparazzi swarming Diana and Dodi, the queen continues to put the blame squarely on Diana, admonishing her for not learning from her mistakes. It’s Diana who is “erratic,” “reckless,” and “out of control.” Not the relentless photographers, her spineless boyfriend, or her unscrupulous “friend” Mohamed Al-Fayed.

“All one wants is for that girl to find peace,” the queen remarks, as the final shot lands on a haunting re-creation of Diana wearing a turquoise bathing suit, sitting forlornly on the Jonikal’s diving board.

Do you, Lilibet? Did you ever truly feel that way?

• It’s hard to find levity in such heavy subject matter, but The Crown succeeds during the senior royals meeting where the “new royal website” is unveiled. Between the dial-up tone and Princess Anne explaining to the bewildered queen mother that “logging on” has “nothing to do with timber,” it’s rather chuckle-worthy.

• Diana’s Duran Duran T-shirt is such a nice touch.

This is WESA Arts, a weekly newsletter by Bill O’Driscoll providing in-depth reporting about the Pittsburgh area art scene. Sign up here to get it every Wednesday afternoon.

Legendary photographer W. Eugene Smith called his signature project, simply, “Pittsburgh.” As in “Pittsburgh is a failure” and “the infinite mistake of Pittsburgh.”

What got him so down? In the 1950s, author Stefan Lorant needed photos for a new book celebrating Pittsburgh’s bicentennial. Smith was a mercurial, New York City-based former World War II combat photographer who had just quit Life magazine. Lorant hired him to spend three weeks here and produce 100 prints.

Lorant got his prints — many known to generations of Pittsburghers from that coffee-table doorstop titled “Pittsburgh: An American City” — but Smith barely knew when to stop.

During his initial stay, in 1955, he became obsessed with the city and documenting it. He roamed from coal mines and steel mills to dusty city sidewalks, pristine public plazas and the steps of the Duquesne Club. He visited multiple times more through 1957, bent on producing a grand, symphonic and likely unprecedented work of photographic art.

Smith never managed it, at least to his own satisfaction. Ultimately, he shot 22,000 exposures. He included a few hundred of them in a 38-page essay published in a photography magazine in 1959, but hated how it turned out.

Smith died in 1978; his work here got a fuller airing with the 2001 publication of “Dream Street: W. Eugene Smith’s Pittsburgh Project,” a 180-page selection of 175 black-and-white photos and accompanying text edited by Sam Stephenson (with help from folks at the Carnegie Museum of Art and the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, the latter of which holds the rights to many of Smith’s Pittsburgh images).

The book went out of print, but Stephenson and the University Chicago Press have produced a new edition. And on Nov. 17, Riverstone Books will host Stephenson in a virtual conversation with award-winning poet Ross Gay, who wrote the forward to the new edition.

It’s a marvelous collection. Others had memorably photographed the city at mid-century, of course, from Johnstown native Luke Swank, in the 1930s and ’40s, to Charles “Teenie” Harris, who documented the Black community here for half of the 20th century. And under the guidance of Roy Stryker, shooters for the Pittsburgh Photographic Library — including talents like Clyde Hare and Esther Bubley — made thousands of images of the city and its people just a few years before Smith arrived.

But Smith’s project is surely the most extensive collection of photos of Pittsburgh conceived in such a brief time period by a single artist. Especially when that artist had relieved himself of obligation to any sort of deadline, or to anything but his vision. Stephenson calls it “the most ambitious project of a major photographer’s career.”

On one page of “Dream Street,” the grand, Ionic-columned interior of Downtown’s old Mellon National Bank, shot from above, is juxtaposed with a separate, street-level image of men standing alongside a message soaped onto a labor union’s storefront window, “No work until further notice.” A police officer in clown makeup at a Shriners parade greets a group of Black children on the Sixth Street Bridge. Steelworkers jovially drink beer and play cards at a picnic. The mills’ fires glow in smoky, artificial twilight. And always, the city’s gruffly photogenic landscape, its steep slopes and river valleys interrupted by the sometimes bold, sometimes desperate assertions of human habitation and industry.

As Smith puts it, “We are so lucky today to have this portrait of America’s primary industrial city at its zenith,” before suburbanization — let alone deindustrialization — fully took hold.

Stephenson originally assembled “Dream Street” while working at Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies; more recently, he published the 2017 biography “Gene Smith’s Sink” and learned much more about the famed photographer, including how influenced he was by pioneering avant-garde filmmaker Stan Brakhage, who had his own long-standing association with Pittsburgh. The two were friends, and Stephenson thinks the “cinematic quality to what Smith was trying to achieve in Pittsburgh was partly down to Brakhage.

Stephenson, who now lives in College Station, Texas, was a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow in nonfiction writing to support a rather different project, on the cultural impact of alt-rock band Jane’s Addiction. He also ghostwrote singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams’ new memoir, “The Secrets I Told You.”

But W. Eugene Smith, and Pittsburgh, remain abiding interests.

The Pittsburgh project was “a failure in Smith’s eyes but not in our eyes,” said Stephenson. “I think he was kind of caught in a bind of his own making” in that there was no way to finish it as he wished. He adds, “I think Smith was really going after poetry instead of journalism.”

More information on Stephenson’s online talk is here.

The widely anticipated final season of The Crown, which dropped its first four episodes on Nov. 16, picks up with the 1997 car crash that saw Princess Diana (Elizabeth Debicki) and Dodi Fayed (Khalid Abdalla) fatally pursued by paparazzi in Paris, and largely deals with its historic fallout. As the storyline jumps back eight weeks prior to the accident, the drama further unpacks the royal family’s tumultuous relationship with the media, in this instance the invasive practices of paparazzi during a defining period in British tabloid culture. It also portrays the deliberate use of photo opportunities to shape public perception at large.  

One such paparazzo depicted in the show is Mario Brenna, an Italian photographer who rose to prominence for his work with luxury fashion houses and photographs of Mediterranean high society. But Brenna’s career-defining moment arrived when he captured the first photographs of Diana and Dodi embracing on a yacht off the coast of Sardinia in the summer of 1997.

Viewers are introduced to Brenna (played by Enzo Cilenti) in episode 2 during a sit-down interview about his profession. “Everyone wants pictures of celebrities. Pictures that show famous people. They are no different, just like us. Making mistakes just like us,” the character says in a lengthy monologue. “People pay one, two hundred thousand dollars for the right shot. But the right shot is hard to get. You have to be like hunters. Killers.” 

“There was this symbiotic relation with the press that Diana had,” royal historian Richard Fitzwilliams tells TIME. “The royals need certain images to get their points across… but it’s a desperately dangerous game.” 

While Brenna was not the only paparazzo who pursued Diana’s image over the years, he was among the best paid. Here’s what to know about his role in Diana’s final weeks, and the royal family’s wider relationship with photography.

Read more: The Crown Hits a Disappointing New Low in Its Maudlin Sixth Season

Who was the real Mario Brenna?

Brenna, then 40 years old and based in Monaco, had primarily worked as the official photographer of fashion houses such as Versace before he captured the candid image of Diana and Dodi on the latter’s family yacht on Aug. 4, 1997. 

Brenna, seemingly in the right place at the right time to take the lucrative photo, was completing another assignment nearby. But disputed reports claim that Diana called Brenna herself to stage the photo opportunity. Tina Brown writes in her 2022 book The Palace Papers, “Time and again, Diana chose to invade her own privacy, often for the capricious reason of making the men in her life jealous.” Discussing this photograph, she writes: “It was she who tipped off Italian lensman Mario Brenna—to send a taunting message to the real love of her life, Hasnat Khan.” Khan was a Pakistani heart surgeon who dated Diana for two years, and who many believe Diana still held affection for at her time of death.

The tabloids began an intense bidding war over the first photo of the couple’s budding romance, with the Sunday Mirror earning rights to print it on their front cover on Aug. 10, under the headline “The Kiss.” The newspaper also fueled rumors about Dodi buying an engagement ring for Diana, and wrote: “Locked in her lover’s arms, the princess finds happiness at last.” 

The Los Angeles Times reported that Brenna earned up to $5 million for world rights to the image. 

Following the first visual insight into the couple’s relationship, other members of the paparazzi ramped up their efforts to secure their own big payout by capturing the couple’s next big moment. A 2006 report from the British metropolitan police states that Brenna’s photograph sparked these efforts. “Not only did this photograph appear to draw media attention to the couple, it is believed that the amount of money reportedly earned by Brenna focused the attention of the paparazzi,” the report reads.   

Brenna has largely stayed out of the public eye since the whirlwind of attention in 1997, though he did speak about photographing the royal during an interview on an Italian news program in 2017. 

How was Diana affected by the paparazzi more broadly?

The paparazzi’s relentless pursuit of Diana is well documented, and many blame the industry for her death on Aug. 31, 1997, in the Pont de L’Alma tunnel in Paris. Dodi and their driver, Henri Paul, also died in the crash. 

At Diana’s funeral days later on Sept. 6, her brother Charles Spencer delivered a speech that implicitly placed responsibility at the hands of the paparazzi, calling his sister “the most hunted person of the modern age.” Over the years, Prince Harry has also been unequivocally vocal about the role photographers played in his mother’s death.  

But royal observers note that, while the chase resulted in devastating consequences for Diana, and she often expressed a desire to leave the U.K. for a more private life, her relationship with the press was often more nuanced than a game of cat and mouse. 

“There’s no doubt there was a problem of privacy for the [then] Princess of Wales, but on the other hand she used the press. One thinks of the famous Serpentine Gallery little black dress image, or posing alone in front of the Taj Mahal,” Fitzwilliams says. He adds that Diana was often able to use the public’s fascination to bring attention to her humanitarian causes such as addressing HIV stigma and advocating against landmines. 

Fitzwilliams notes that Diana likely leaned into her relationship with the media when she wanted to communicate something. “She was intending to make a statement that she seemed to have… found freedom,” Fitzwilliams says. But at times her personal life could overshadow her humanitarian work. “The Kiss” photograph was published while Diana was in Bosnia-Herzegovina connecting with victims of landmines, and the media frenzy temporarily eclipsed her advocacy efforts.

What was Charles’ relationship with photography?

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The Crown depicts King Charles, then Prince of Wales, grappling with public perception of him as a father and seeking to improve the way Camilla was received. In July 1997, Charles hosted a 50th birthday party for Camilla, which is depicted in episode 1 as Charles struggles to get members of the royal family to attend. 

“As far as Charles is concerned, he was never especially good at public relations” says Fitzwilliams, noting the royal’s interview with Jonathan Dimbly in 1994 where he admitted to having an extramarital affair. Fitzwilliams argues that the most defining photographs of Charles as a prince often featured Diana, while Diana’s were of her alone. 

After the couple’s separation, Charles used photo opportunities to redefine himself. In one such instance, as depicted in episode 2, Charles staged a photocall with William and Harry taken by Scottish photographer Duncan Muir on the banks of the River Dee at Balmoral. In the episode, an advisor to the prince suggests playing up the optics of Diana as a “tabloid princess as opposed to a broadsheet prince.” 

There is also an element of giving something to the media and public, to earn privacy in return. “You have to feed the beast to some extent,” says Fitzwilliams. No clearer is this in The Crown than when Diana is on holiday with her children in Saint-Tropez and approaches a fleet of photographers on a speedboat to deliver an impromptu press conference she hopes will incentivize their departure. “You leave me and my boys alone please, and you’re going to get a big surprise with the next thing I do,” her character says. As history tells, the paparazzi intensified their pursuit of Diana on her next holiday. 

Eric Oxendorf, an internationally recognized architectural photographer, recently celebrated 50 years in his field and reflected on the journey to where he is now.

As a U.S. naval aviation veteran from the Vietnam War, Oxendorf graduated from Layton School of Art with a degree in art. He traveled worldwide for a career in visual arts and worked collaboratively with architects and engineers on a variety of subject materials. Oxendorf provided architects with an international platform to display their work and has been recognized for his impact on the architectural community.

Oxendorf said the childhood walks he took through Milwaukee with his mother and siblings are what sparked his interest in architecture. 

“We would walk around town and [my mother] would point out, ‘This is a column, it’s holding up the roof. It’s a doric column. This is an older building that was built in 1890. This building was built in 1950, you can see the difference,’” Oxendorf said. “I just got this information all the time.”

Oxendorf joined the Navy in 1967 and served in the Vietnam War for 22 months in a rescue helicopter squadron. After he returned, he went to a Veterans Affairs facility for advice on what career path to pursue.

“The counselor told me in short, ‘You are very independent-minded, you have a very creative bent to the way you figure things out, [and] that’s why you were in that squadron,’” Oxendorf said. “He told me that I needed to be self-employed and go into a creative field.”

After graduating from Layton School of Art, Oxendorf said his photography took off around 1974. With this growing recognition, he established an office and began traveling internationally to capture architectural photographs for both self-fulfillment and clients. 

His parents are what inspired him most throughout his career, he noted.

“My father was very strict and regimented, but he was still loving,” Oxendorf said. “My mother was very creative, and they showed me the world. I was always encouraged to do whatever I wanted to.”

Now, with five decades of experience in the field, Oxendorf is continuing his work at 75 years old.

From homes spanning the globe to rotundas in each state capitol building, Oxendorf aims to use his photography to showcase beauty in all types of architecture.

Lisa Kennedy, the executive director of AIA Wisconsin, explained her relationship with Oxendorm and her appreciation for all he has done for the architectural community.

“We’ve been friends for a long, long time,” Kennedy said. “I just really appreciated what he has done for our profession and how many of our members he has worked with over the years. The architects are our members, so why not celebrate his work as well?”

Kennedy noted the exhibition celebrating Oxendorf’s 50 years helped make architecture more accessible to the public and allowed individuals to gain better recognition of how they are surrounded by architecture daily.

Despite having a background in art rather than architecture, Oxendorf’s creative vision and ability to capture the perfect photograph have contributed to his reputation for creating award-winning and widely published photographs.

“My job is being happy,” Oxendorf said. “This makes me happy. I am at peace with this. We live on an incredible planet and I love life, especially after you could’ve lost it several times.”